Battery Park is located at the southern tip of Manhattan Island. The Staten Island Ferry route is highlighted in yellow.
Click on a marker to see where Castle Clinton, South Ferry, Castle Williams, Ellis Island and Liberty Island are located. Unless you already know.
The Seal of the City of New York features the year 1625. The significant event of that year was the beginning of the construction of Fort Amsterdam.
Castle Clinton
Battery Park
New York, NY 10004
(212) 344-7220
From the time of the first European settlers until the commercialization of air transportation, the southern tip of Manhattan Island has been a first line of defense. That being the case, a basic appreciation of the history of this location requires knowing 1) who was inside the line of defense, and 2) which outsiders they were trying to protect themselves from.
The original “battery” was the set of guns placed in Fort Amsterdam, created to protect the New Netherland colony’s Hudson River beaver trading operations against attack from the English and the French. Fort Amsterdam stood on one piece of ground from 1625 until 1790, but that strategic location was to change hands no less than eight times, as the Dutch, the British and American colonists vied for control.
With increasing tension between the newly independent United States and their former colonial masters in Great Britain, and with Fort Amsterdam having been demolished in 1790, the need for a pair of fortifications to guard New York City was perceived. A year before the outbreak of the War of 1812, a fort called West Battery was completed just a couple of city blocks west from where Fort Amsterdam had stood, and another fort called East Battery was built on the northwest point of Governors Island, just a half-mile from the southern tip of Manhattan Island. The West Battery was later renamed Castle Clinton, and the East Battery was to be called Castle Williams, and neither one of them saw any action in the War of 1812.
Castle Clinton has stood through the years, and after a major rehabilitation in the 1970s it became the departure point for visitors to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, and so it has remained to this day. During the intervening years it served as a beer garden, a theater, the nation’s first immigration station, and as a popular public aquarium. It was built on a small artificial island just off shore, and was connected to the mainland as a result of the construction of Battery Park during the 19th century. Yes, the Dutch never walked through the Battery Park area, it’s just a landfill.
In 1855, Castle Garden (as it was then known) became New York State’s immigrant processing facility. It served in this capacity until 1892, when the Federal Government opened the larger and more isolated Ellis Island facility for that purpose. Most of the immigration records from that period burned in a pier fire during the transition to Ellis Island, but it is generally accepted that between 8 and 12 million immigrants were processed through Castle Garden.
Today’s Battery Park is where you can embark on a ferry trip to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, take a ride on the Staten Island Ferry, or just stand on the shoreline and take in the historic view of Upper New York Bay. Here are some pictures taken on an unusually warm and sunny New York City day in late October.
There really are all sorts of interesting places (just in case you never realized this) in NYC. While we still have warm weather I’m trying to visit as many outdoors sites as possible. Once the weather gets colder I want to cover more places in “the city”, as us suburbanites call it.
Ferry rides and some fascinating history… Sounds like a perfect day! I haven’t been closer to NYC than Newark, NJ (airport) in the past few years. It would be a fun trip!
Thanks Leigh. For many people the post interesting “piece of history” regarding this place is that of their own ancestors entering the U.S. That’s the case with me also, but Ellis Island was already the entry spot by then.
Great entry Doug. I was here in 2000, but don’t recall much. I never knew much about the history of Castle Garden (other than my family came through there so I knew it was an immigration facility in the latter 19th century). Thanks for sharing some history, an interesting read.
Thanks Lauren. I’m off to the Washington-Baltimore area, and plan to stop by some more forts, so we’ll see how these ones look.
Another wonderful history lesson Doug. You know how much I love old fortifications, but it’s such a shame this one went through so much renovations and reconstruction. It almost loses that sense of history. However, I will agree with Rebecca on this one. There was so much industry and change happening at the time, so really it was inevitable that places like this would become more tourist friendly.
Yes Rebecca, it would be pretty intense to be able see the real Fort Amsterdam, and even more so to see American cannon firing on the British. That did actually happen before the British took over Manhattan Island. Before that they established control over Governors Island – as you can see in the map and one of the photos it really is very close to Battery Park. So, there were some exchanges until they took over Manhattan.
Did Battery Park and Fort Amsterdam play an important role in the American Revolution? I know the Americans suffered a horrible defeat at the hands of the British at the Battle of New York and were driven off Manhattan Island. New York has such a great history. I think it’s a shame a lot of that has been lost to urbanization.
Yes cieldequimper, it’s one of those things that shake you up a bit and make you realize that things were not always as they appear right now, and could change again.
Hi Doug. Very interesting as usual and this reminds me of many good memories! Though I have been to Ellis Island, I never until now realised how much like the Tower of London the place looks. Odd that it should strike me now.
Isn’t it strange that this city started out life as New Amsterdam?
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by urbanantiques, Doug Pologe. Doug Pologe said: New blog post: "Battery Park in New York City" http://bit.ly/RjDpJ [...]