Old Broadway at City Hall Park

Looking north on Broadway from the Park Row intersection, on the right, with a Civil War recruiting station. Photograph by Brown Brothers, 1863. Source: Photographic views from the collections of the New York Public Library.

Photograph shows traffic, pedestrians and buildings on the west side of Broadway, facing City Hall Park (to the right).

The old Astor House, opened in 1836, on the southwest corner of Barclay Street (left). The old 6-story American Hotel building is on the northwest corner of Barclay St. The hotel open in 1825 and was a fashionable hotel until about the 1830s. It was destroyed by fire in 1866 and replaced in the same year by another 6-story office building. This block, from Barclay St. to Park Place is the site of the Woolworth Building, completed in 1913.