Walking tour · Manhattan

Where New York Began

1.8 mi walk

Open in Stride Stories

The stories on this route

1. Castle Clinton

   Look at the round red walls in front of you, and the gun ports cut through them. At the ports, the sandstone is eight feet thick. When this fort went up, between 1808 and 1811, it stood on an artificial island just off the tip of Manhattan. A wooden bridge linked it to the shore.

2. Bowling Green

   You're standing in New York's oldest public park. Before it was a park, it was a cattle market and a parade ground. In 1733 the city leased it to three neighbours for a peppercorn a year. Their promise: a park that would be "the delight of the Inhabitants of the City".

3. Charging Bull

   Look at the bronze bull, head down toward Broadway, nose and horns rubbed to a shine. Nobody asked for it. Late on December 14, 1989, sculptor Arturo Di Modica dropped it, without permission, under the Christmas tree outside the New York Stock Exchange. A Christmas gift to New Yorkers.

4. Fraunces Tavern

   Look at the corner of Pearl and Broad: a brick building with dormer windows. It went up as a house in 1719, with small yellow bricks from the Dutch Republic. In 1762 Samuel Fraunces bought it and turned it into a popular tavern.

5. Stone Street

   Look down at your feet: cobbles, curving between old granite shopfronts. This is Stone Street, the first paved street in New Amsterdam. Back in the 1650s, the people living on what the Dutch called Brewers Street asked to have it cobbled. And they paid for it with their own money. Now the honest part.

6. Delmonico's

   Look at the rounded corner, at Beaver and South William Streets. Over the door, two Corinthian columns hold up a frieze that spells DELMONICO'S.

7. Wall Street and the wall

   Find the city marker in the little park at the corner of Wall and Water Streets. Then look west, up Wall Street. You're looking along the line of a real wall.

8. 40 Wall Street and Federal Hall and 23 Wall Street

   Look up at the green pyramid roof and its spire. Around 1930, this tower was racing the Chrysler Building to be the tallest in the world. It went up in about a year, with up to 2,300 workers on shifts round the clock, to 927 feet. But Chrysler had built its top in secret. Up went a spire, to 1,046 feet.

9. Trinity Church

   Look at the brownstone tower and spire that close the view down Wall Street. This is Trinity Church, the third church on this spot.

10. Equitable Building

    Look up at the Equitable Building. It fills the whole block, and its walls go straight up from the sidewalk, about 38 storeys, with no step-backs. When it was finished in 1915, it was the largest office building in the world. Its noon shadow, someone complained, covered six times its own area.

11. St. Paul's Chapel

    You're looking at the back of St. Paul's Chapel. It was built in the 1760s to face the river, with its back to Broadway. Back then it stood in a field, a chapel for people who found Trinity Church too far away. Look up at the spire, added in 1794.

12. Woolworth Building and City Hall Park

    Look across Broadway at the tower with the pyramid roof. That's the Woolworth Building, 792 feet tall. When it was finished in 1913, it was the tallest building in the world. Frank Woolworth's fortune came from five-and-ten-cent stores.

13. African Burial Ground

    Look at the tall green granite chamber, and the seven grassy mounds beside it.

Stories researched October 2026 · every fact checked against a source