- Bowling Green (New York City)
Infobox_nrhp | name =Bowling Green Fence and Park
nrhp_type =
caption = Bowling Green, shown in a composite photograph taken from the steps of the U.S. Custom House looking north along Broadway
location= Broadway and Beaver Sts.,New York, New York
lat_degrees = 40
lat_minutes = 42
lat_seconds = 18
lat_direction = N
long_degrees = 74
long_minutes = 0
long_seconds = 51
long_direction = W
locmapin = New York
area =
built =1733
architect=
architecture=
added =April 09 ,1980 cite web|url=http://www.nr.nps.gov/|title=National Register Information System|date=2008-04-15|work=National Register of Historic Places|publisher=National Park Service]
governing_body = Local
refnum=80002673Bowling Green is a small public park in
Lower Manhattan at the foot of Broadway next to the site of the original Dutch fort ofNew Amsterdam . It is the oldest existing public park inNew York City and the location of the "Charging Bull "bronze sculpture . Bowling Green marks the origin point for theticker-tape parade s that gave to the lowest section of Broadway its journalisticsobriquet the "Canyon of Heroes ". The Bowling Green Fence and Park is listed on the U.S.National Register of Historic Places .Description
The park is a wedge-shaped plaza, formed by the splitting of Broadway into two forks, the eastern of which becomes Whitehall Street and the western of which becomes State Street after Broadway terminates. A portion of the park is a fenced-in grassy area with tables and chairs that are popular lunchtime destinations for local workers in the nearby Financial District. As of 2006 there is a fountain and a pool.
The south end of the plaza is bounded by the front entrance of
Alexander Hamilton US Custom House , which currently houses the New York branch of theNational Museum of the American Indian and the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York (Manhattan Division). Previously there was a public road along the south edge of the park, also called "Bowling Green", but since this area was needed for a modern entrance to the subway station, the road was eliminated and paved over with cobblestones. If weather permits, there are official food stands in this area once or twice a week, as well as many unofficial vendors sellinggrey-market goods (and occasionally pirated or knockoff goods).History
The park has long been a center of activity in the city going back to the days of
New Amsterdam , when it served as cattle market between 1638 and 1647 and parade ground. In 1675, the Common Council designated the “plaine afore the forte” for an annual market of “graine, cattle and other produce of the country”. In 1677 the city's first public well was dug in front of the old fort at Bowling Green. [ [http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/html/history.html NYC Department of Environmental Protection, "New York City's Water Supply System: History"] .] In 1733, the Common Council leased a portion of the parade grounds to three prominent neighboring landlords for a peppercorn a year, upon their promise to create a park that would be “the delight of the Inhabitants of the City” and add to its “Beauty and Ornament“; the improvements were to include a “bowling green” with “walks therein”. [Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace, "Gotham".] The surrounding streets were not paved with cobblestones until 1744.In
August 21 ,1770 , the British government erected a 4,000 pound (1,800 kg) gilded lead statue in the plaza depicting King George III mounted on horseback and dressed in Roman garb in the style of theEquestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius . The statue had been commissioned in 1766, along with a statue ofWilliam Pitt , from the prominent London sculptorJoseph Wilton .With the rapid deterioration of relations with the mother country after 1770, the statue became a magnet for the Bowling Green protests; [ On 1 November 1765 the
Sons of Liberty protesting theStamp Act had marched down Broadway, carrying an effigy of the Royal Governor. They threw rocks and bricks at the adjacentFort George , and at Bowling Green they burned the Governor's effigy as well as his coach, which had fallen into their hands.] in 1773, the city passed an anti-graffiti and anti-desecration law to counter vandalism against the monument, and a protective cast-iron fence was built around it (which still exists as of 2006). OnJuly 9 ,1776 , after the Declaration of Independence was read to Washington's troops at the current site of City Hall, localSons of Liberty rushed down Broadway to Bowling Green where they toppled the statue. The cast-iron crowns that topped sections of the surrounding fence were knocked off, as well. The event is one of the most enduring images in the city's history. According to folklore, the statue was chopped up and shipped to a Connecticut foundry under the direction ofOliver Wolcott to be made into 42,088 patriot bullets-at 20 bullets per pound {2,104.4 pounds}. The statue's head was to have been paraded about town on pike-staffs-but was recovered byLoyalists and sent to England. Six pieces of the lead statue are preserved in theNew-York Historical Society ; one in theMuseum of the City of New York ; 3 parts in Connecticut {estimated total of prehaps 260/270 pounds}; 5 other pieces are reported to have survived but have been missing since 1777; 1829; 1864; 1894 {in excess of 140 pounds{?}. The event has been depicted over the years in several works of art, including an 1854 painting by William Walcutt and a 1859 painting byJohannes Adam Simon Oertel .The marble slab of the pedestal of the statue was first used for a tombstone of a Major John Smith of the
Black Watch who died 1783; when Smith's grave site was leveled in 1804, the slab became a stone step at two mansions, until 1880 when the inscription was discovered; it was then transferred to theNew-York Historical Society . Reputably, the monument base upon which the pedestal and statute rested stood until May 1818 when it was torn down and allegedly pieces became part of a house's walk. Also allegedly the Monument base can be seen in the background of 1790 portrait ofGeorge Washington byJohn Trumbull . The William Pitt statue is in the New-York Historical Society.Following the Revolution, the remains of the fort facing Bowling Green were demolished (1788) and part of the rubble used to extend
the Battery towards the west. In its place a grand governor's mansion was built, suitable, it was hoped for a President's House, with a four-columned portico facing across Bowling Green and up Broadway. Governor John Jay inhabited it, but when the state capital was moved to Albany, the house served as a boarding house before being demolished in 1815. [Eric Homberger, "Mrs. Astor's New York: Money and Social Power in a Gilded Age" 2004:68] Elegant townhouses were built around the park, which remained largely the private domain of the residents, though now some of the Tory patricians of New York were replaced by Republican ones; leading New York merchants, led byAbraham Kennedy , in a mansion at 1, Broadway that had a 56-foot facade under a central pediment [It is illustrated in a lithograph of Bowling Green, Homberger, pl. 14.] and a front towards the Battery Parade, as the new piece of open ground was called. The Hon. John Watts, whose summer place wasRose Hill, Manhattan , Chancellor Robert Livingston at no. 5,Stephen Whitney at no. 7, andJohn Stevens , all constructed residences facing Bowling Green.By 1850, however, with the opening of
Lafayette Street , then ofWashington Square andFifth Avenue , the general northward migration of residences inManhattan led to the conversion of the residences into the shipping offices, resulting in full public access to the park.urrounding architecture
The park suffered neglect after
World War II , but was restored by the city in the 1970s and is now one of the most heavily traveled plazas in the city.The Bowling Green Fence and Park were listed on the U.S.
National Register of Historic Places in 1980, but the urbanistic value of the space is created by theskyscraper s and other structures that surround it: theAlexander Hamilton US Custom House to the south, and, clockwise, One Broadway (the "Washington Building",Edward H. Kendall , 1884; refaced and remodelled by Walter B. Chambers [ [http://www.nyc-architecture.com/LM/LM007-ONEBROADWAY.htm Nyc-architecture.com : One Broadway] ] ), the Bowling Green Building, 11 Broadway (1895-98, W. and G. Audsley, later serving theWhite Star Line ), the Cunard Building, 25 Broadway (1921,Benjamin Wistar Morris , withCarrère and Hastings ), ["This 'Renaissance' facade and its neighbors handsomely surround Bowling Green with a high order of group architecture", the "AIA Guide to New York" remarked at the height of Modernism, in 1968] facing it on the east side, the Standard Oil Company Building, 26 Broadway (1922, Carrère and Hastings with Shreve, Lamb & Blake), and— the one stylistic intruder— 2 Broadway (1959-60, Emery Roth & Sons, resurfaced 1999Skidmore, Owings & Merrill ), a Modernist glass wall that replaced the distinguished Produce Exchange Building (1881-84,George B. Post ), as an "acceptable sacrifice" [ [http://www.nyc-architecture.com/LM/LM017-2BROADWAY.htm Nycarchiture.com : Two Broadway] ] intended to spur financial district rebuilding.In 1989, the sculpture "
Charging Bull " byArturo Di Modica was installed in the park by theNew York City Department of Parks and Recreation after it had been confiscated by the police following its illegal installation onWall Street . The sculpture has become one of the beloved and recognizable landmarks of the Financial District.ubway station
Bowling Green is also the name of a
New York City Subway station on theIRT Lexington Avenue Line , the entrances of which, opened in 1905, are located in and next to the plaza. Subway construction disrupted the remnants of the bowling green, which was removed toCentral Park .Notes
External links
* [http://www.baycrossings.com/archives/2002/04_May/new_york_harbor_history.htm Richard B. Marrin, "Harbor History: Bowling Green: The Birthplace of New York"]
* [http://www.ctssar.org/articles/king_georges_head.htm Where is King George's head?]
* [http://www.columbia.edu/~brennan/abandoned/bowling.html Abandoned Stations: Bowling Green]
* [http://www.nycfoto.com/showPage.php?albumID=568 NYCfoto.com] Recent photos of Bowling Green
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.