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Photo: Jim.henderson, Public domain via Wikimedia Commons
Fraunces Tavern is a museum, bar and restaurant in New York City, situated at 54 Pearl Street at the corner of Pearl and Broad Streets in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan. Fraunces Tavern played a prominent role in history before, during, and after the American Revolution. Before the war, Fraunces Tavern served as a meeting place for the Sons of Liberty; as the British Army prepared to evacuate New York City, it was the site for proceedings known as "The Birch Trials" ; once the British Army left, it was the site where, in late 1783, General George Washington was honored at a banquet celebrating the British Army evacuation and, days later, where Washington bid farewell to his officers. Later, when the United States capital was located in New York City, Fraunces Tavern was rented in 1785-1788 by the Congress of the Confederation to house the departments of Foreign Affairs and War, and offices of the Board of Treasury – serving, in essence, as the Nation's first executive office building.
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formerly British Garden at Hanover Square
Housed in the Alexander Hamilton US Custom House, this Smithsonian museum is the New York branch of the National Museum of the American Indian (the other branches are in Washington, D.C. and Maryland).
A small park at the foot of Broadway which is the oldest public park in the city and is the site of the Charging Bull sculpture created after the 1987 stock market crash. Bowling Green is also the origin point for the Broadway ticker-tape parades; if you walk up Broadway, you can view plaques in the sidewalk honoring the people or events celebrated in these parades.
A museum dedicated to the history of the NYPD.
The historic heart of the Financial District and the home of the New York Stock Exchange, Wall Street is a metonym for American big business, stock trading and the entire financial industry, although most New York financial firms are no longer headquartered on the street itself, but housed nearby in new offices, and some have moved to Jersey City. A narrow street running downhill from Broadway to the East River, Wall Street was named for the wall that was built here in 1652 to keep Manhattan's indigenous peoples out of the growing Dutch settlement. The wall was demolished by the British in 1699. By the late 18th century, traders and speculators would gather under a buttonwood tree at the foot of Wall Street to trade informally - this was the origin of the New York Stock Exchange that was established in 1817.
At the southern tip of Manhattan, Battery Park is a waterfront green space, named for the artillery batteries which were installed here to protect the settlement of New York when it was under Dutch, then British rule. In the lead-up to the War of 1812, Castle Clinton was constructed as a fort to protect the city, and is now operated as a small museum. There are several memorials in the park, including The Sphere, a public art piece originally housed on the World Trade Center site which survived the events of September 11 and was moved to Battery Park. Ferries departing to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island (see below) depart from here.