Number 1 Broadway, Bowling Green, NYC

Looking up from Number 1 Broadway, Bowling Green. Engraving published by D. Appleton & Co., in the New York illustrated, copyright 1877.

This is Bowling Green in the old days. The park is fenced with its fountain inside. The old Washington Hotel (1 Broadway) in on the left, on the corner of Battery Place. It was replaced by the Washington Building, which opened in 1884.

Some text from the magazine: «Bowling Green, a circular green within a few steps of the Battery, was once the court end of the town. No. 1 Broadway, known as the "Old Kennedy House," was built in 1760, and has been occupied as the residence and headquarters of Lord Cornwallis, Sir Henry Clinton, and General Washington. At No. 11, General Gates had his headquarters, and in 1763 it was the site of the Dutch tavern of Burgomaster Martin Cruger. Southeast of the Green, now the site of a row of brick houses, in 1635, stood Fort Amsterdam, which was capacious enough to contain the governor's residence, a church, and a garrison of three hundred soldiers. In 1770, an equestrian statue of King George III was erected in Bowling Green, and a handsome iron railing was placed around it for protection. It was destroyed by the people on the evening when the Declaration of Independence was read to the troops in New York, and subsequently melted by the family of Governor Wolcott, of Connecticut. According to his statement, it furnished material for forty-two thousand bullets. The pedestal, as late as 1855, was serving as a doorstep to the mansion of the Van Voorst family in Jersey City. The iron balls which once ornamented the top of the railing were knocked off to give the British fleet a welcome from the cannon's throat.»