New York City Lower Manhattan

At every stage in New York's 400-year history, Lower Manhattan has been at the center of the action. You can see layers upon layers of history wherever you go. If you pay a visit to Wall Street in the Financial District, you'll see Federal Hall, which was the national capital from 1789 to 1790. Now the area is considered the world's financial capital. Just south of Wall St., the US Custom House, finished in 1907, is situated on a site that first served as a trading center for Native Americans, then for European settlers. The building now houses the New York branch of the National Museum of the American Indian. South of that is Battery Park, a former artillery battery used by the Dutch and the British. Castle Clinton, within the park, was used as a fort, then as a public theater, then as an immigrant checkpoint, then as an aquarium, and is now a National Monument. Millions of tourists come to Battery Park to see the monuments and purchase tickets to see the Statue of Liberty. The Civic Center area in the north of Lower Manhattan is no less of a historical center. George Washington prayed at St. Paul's Chapel on his Inauguration Day in 1789, and the church withstood the terrorist attacks of 9/11, which covered it with debris. The former World Trade Center is just steps away. Just north of St. Paul's are Tweed Courthouse, the building that allowed Boss Tweed to embezzle huge sums of money (it is now home to the New York Department of Education), and City Hall, one of the oldest city halls still used for its intended purpose in the country. At this sight, as with so many in Lower Manhattan, it is eerie to see how history continues to resurface within its walls.

Financial District

National Museum of the American Indian, 1 Bowling Green (www.AmericanIndian.si.edu), In New York City, history has an strange way of layering itself. The Alexander Hamilton US Custom House was finished ...more

Civic Center

African Burial Ground, Corner of Duane St. and Elk St., (www.nps.gov/afbg), In the 17th and 18th centuries, when colonial laws prohibited the burial of Africans in officially consecrated sites, an estimated ...more