New York City (Fodor's, 2012) - Fodor's [17]
Marking Wall Street’s far west end is Trinity Church, whose parish was founded by King William III of England in 1697. Trinity’s burial ground serves as a resting place for a half-dozen notables, including Alexander Hamilton.
If you get tuckered out, do as the locals do and hit the spa. The Wall Street Bath & Spa (88 Fulton St. | 212/766–8600) offers old-school saunas and plunging pools for $32.50 a day. Those with bigger bonuses should snag an appointment at the Setai Spa (40 Broad St., 3rd floor above SHO restaurant | 212/363–5418). The luxurious massages and facials make for excellent top-tier pampering.
THE STREET OF SHIPS
It’s hard to see history in Lower Manhattan’s rebuilt and bustling streets. But at South Street Seaport history is right in your face. The seaport was created to time-warp visitors back to the days when N.Y.C. was a bustling nautical town, and it succeeds in part. Its spiffy little fleet does bring you back to the 19th century, when tall ships sailed from South Street, a time when pirates—Captain Kidd had a house near the wharves—and merchants walked the cobblestone streets and warehouses held treasures from exotic ports. What the seaport, in all its scrubbed tourist beauty, does not include among its careful restorations are the gambling houses, brothels, and saloons that were once so common in this area.
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TOP ATTRACTIONS IN THE FINANCIAL DISTRICT AND SOUTH STREET SEAPORT
Battery Park.
Jutting out at the southernmost point of Manhattan, tree-filled Battery Park is a respite from the narrow, winding, and (on weekdays) jam-packed streets of the Financial District. Even if you don’t plan to stay for long, carve out a couple of minutes from sightseeing time to sit on a bench and take in the view, which includes the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. On crystal-clear days you can see all the way to Port Elizabeth’s cranes, which seem to mimic Lady Liberty’s stance. Of course, looking away from the water and toward the buildings, there’s a feeling that you’re at the beginning of the city, and a sense of all the possibility it offers just a few blocks in.
The park’s main structure is Castle Clinton National Monument, the ticket-office site and takeoff point for ferries to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. This monument was once 200 feet off the southern tip of the island, located in what was called the Southwest Battery, and was erected during the War of 1812 to defend the city. (The East Battery sits across the harbor on Governors Island.) As dirt and debris from construction were dumped into the harbor, the island expanded, eventually engulfing the landmark. Later, from 1855 to 1890, it served as America’s first official immigration center (Ellis Island opened in 1892).
The interior of the park is loaded with monuments and statues, including The Sphere, which for three decades stood on the plaza at the World Trade Center as a symbol of peace. Damaged but still intact after the collapse of the towers, it serves as a temporary memorial to those who lost their lives.
The southern link in a chain of parks connecting Battery Park north to Chambers Street, Robert F. Wagner Jr. Park has a flat, tidy lawn and wide benches from which to view the harbor or the stream of runners and in-line skaters on the promenade. A brick structure that holds public bathrooms and a restaurant provides additional views from its flat roof. | Broadway and Battery Pl., Lower Manhattan | 10004 | Subway: 4, 5 to Bowling Green.
Fodor’s Choice | Brooklyn Bridge.
“A drive-through cathedral” is how the critic James Wolcott described one of New York’s noblest and most recognized landmarks. “The best, most effective medicine my soul has yet partaken,” said Walt Whitman upon seeing the nearly completed bridge. It spans the East River, connecting Manhattan and Brooklyn. A walk across its promenade—a boardwalk elevated above a roadway and shared by pedestrians, in-line skaters, and cyclists—takes about 40 minutes from the heart of Brooklyn Heights to Manhattan’s civic center. It’s worth