Bowling Green Park, New York City

The oval Bowling Green Park seen from the Custom House building, looking north towards Broadway. Photograph by Angelo Rizzuto (1906-1967), taken in August 1952. Source: Collection of photographs of the New York Public Library.

The Bowling Green was created at the southern tip of Manhattan in 1733 and originally had a trapezoidal shape. The oval shape was build about the 1780s. Before 1844, a decorative fountain was installed in the center of the Park. It was removed in the reforms of the late 1930s and reinstalled about 1977.

The Abraham de Peyster statue, in the center, was installed in 1896 and removed in 1972. Today it is located at the Thomas Paine Park, Civic Center. Abraham de Peyster (1657-1728) was the 20th mayor of New York City from 1691 to 1694, and served as Governor of New York, in 1700–1701.

The Standard Oil Building (26 Broadway) is on the northeast corner of Beaver Street. It began to be erected in 1884 and was expanded in 1921 and 1928.