The Oldest Mile: Lower Manhattan from Battery to Brooklyn

The Battery

The southern tip of Manhattan, where New York began as a Dutch fort in 1624. Castle Clinton, the harbor views, and the story of eight million immigrants.

You're standing at the southern tip of Manhattan, looking out at the water that made this city possible. The Lenape called this island Manahatta, a place of hills and marshes and oyster beds so thick they rose above the surface at low tide. The Dutch saw a deep natural harbor and built a settlement here in 1624, anchoring it with a fort at this very spot. The park's name comes from the artillery battery that once lined this shore, pointed seaward against the British.

That round sandstone building behind you is Castle Clinton, built in 1807 as a fort, later turned into an opera house where Jenny Lind sang, then the city's first immigrant processing center where eight million people first touched American soil before Ellis Island opened. Take a moment. The harbor, the ferries, the Statue of Liberty out on the water. Everything New York became started right here.

Bowling Green

New York's oldest park, ringed by a 1771 iron fence whose crown finials were sawed off by revolutionaries in 1776.

This is New York's oldest public park, laid out in 1733. The iron fence around you is original, cast in 1771, and look at the tops of the posts. Those uneven stubs are where royal crowns once sat. On July 9, 1776, after hearing the Declaration of Independence read aloud for the first time, a crowd marched here and pulled down the gilded lead statue of King George III that stood in the center.

They sawed off the crowns on the fence posts too. Legend says the king's statue was melted into 42,000 musket balls for the Continental Army. The fence survived because nobody could figure out how to make bullets from iron. The building on your left with the Egyptian facade, 5 Broadway, was the White Star Line office.

After the Titanic sank in 1912, families gathered inside those doors waiting for news.

Charging Bull

Di Modica's 7,100-pound bronze bull, guerrilla-installed after the 1987 crash and now the Financial District's most photographed icon.

This 7,100-pound bronze bull appeared here in the middle of the night on December 16, 1989. The artist, Arturo Di Modica, had spent two years and his own money casting it in secret after the 1987 stock market crash. He saw it as a gift to the city, a symbol of resilience. The police impounded it that morning, but the public outcry was so loud the city relented and installed it here a few days later.

The bull faces north, head lowered, hindquarters tensed. It is charging, not resting. Touch the horns if you want the tourist photo. The real story is that a sculptor spent his savings to make a city he loved feel strong again.