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The
Financial District has been synonymous with the Manhattan of the popular
imagination for some time - its tall buildings and skyline, its busy streets,
its symbols of economic strength and financial wheeling and dealing. So when the
September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center resulted in the collapse
of the Twin Towers, it was no surprise the impact this had not just on the
neighborhood, but on the city and country as well. The district will be
recovering for some time, and the celebrated skyline you've seen in movies has
been radically altered. There is still plenty to see in the area, however, and
in any case many visitors might find a pilgrimage to the site of the former Twin
Towers - or as near as you can get - hard to resist.
At
the time of writing, some of the subway lines that were running below
the former World Trade Center have not reopened; the best way to reach
the Financial District is by taking the #1, #2, #4 or #5 to Wall Street
and starting your wanderings there
The
World Trade Center – 1972 – 2001
On
September 11th, 2001
, a hijacked airline slammed into the north tower of the World Trade
Center at 8.45am; eighteen minutes later another hijacked plane
struck the south tower. As thousands looked on in horror - in addition
to millions more viewing on TV - the south tower collapsed at 9.50am,
its twin about half an hour later. That afternoon, a smaller building in
the World Trade Center complex also crumbled, and the center was reduced
to a monument of steel, concrete and glass rubble.
The
devastation was staggering. While most of the 50,000 working in the
towers had been evacuated before the towers fell, many never made it
out; hundreds of firemen, policemen and rescue workers who arrived on
the scene when the planes struck were crushed when the buildings
collapsed. In all, around 3000 perished in what was easily the largest
attack on America in history.
In
the days after the attack, downtown was basically shut down, and the
seven-square-block vicinity immediately around the WTC - soon to be
known as Ground Zero - was the obvious focus of the rescue
effort. New Yorkers lined up to give blood and volunteer to help the
rescue workers; vigils were held throughout the city, most notably in
Union Square, which became peppered with all manner of candles and
makeshift shrines; and all city hospitals were on red alert to receive
injured victims. Precious few came, and as weeks passed, reality began
to sink in. Through it all Mayor Giuliani cut a highly composed and
reassuring figure as New Yorkers struggled to come to terms with the
physical and emotional assault on their city. It was more than just
sheer numbers - the lives lost, the expected $60 billion cost of
insurance payouts, property value loss, cleanup (expected to take a full
year) - things were irrevocably changed.
The
chief suspect in the attacks was Osama bin Laden's many-headed
terrorist network that he operated from the mountains of Afghanistan. In
October 2001, the US government struck back against Afghanistan's ruling
Taliban group, known to harbor and support bin Laden.
An
observation platform , overlooking the site, has been erected on
Broadway and Fulton Street.
Explore Financial District
Battery Park City
#4 or
#5 train to Bowling Green.
The
hole dug for the foundations of the Twin Towers threw up a million cubic
yards of earth and rock; these excavations were dumped into the Hudson
to form the 23-acre base of Battery Park City , a self-sufficient
island of office blocks, apartments, chain boutiques, and landscaped
esplanade that feels a far cry from much of Manhattan indeed.
At
its very southern end is the entrance to Robert F. Wagner Jr. Park
- Zen-like in its peacefulness away from the ferry crowds and winner of
a National Honor Award for Urban Design in 1998. In the park, a
hexagonal, pale-granite building designed in 1997 by Kevin Roche will
catch your eye. That's the
Museum
of Jewish Heritage
, 18 First Place (Sun-Wed 9am-5pm, Thurs until 8pm, Fri 9am-5pm, closed
Jewish holidays; $7, children $5; tel 212/509-6130, www.mjhnyc.org
), was created as a memorial to the Holocaust. Three floors of exhibits
feature historical and cultural artifacts ranging from the practical
accoutrements of everyday Eastern European Jewish life to the prison
garb survivors wore in Nazi concentration camps, along with photographs,
personal belongings and narratives.
Battery Park and Castle Clinton
#4 or
#5 train to Bowling Green.
Due
west of Bowling Green Park, lower Manhattan lets out its breath in
Battery Park , a bright and breezy space with tall trees, green
grass, lots of flowers and views overlooking the panorama of the Statue
of Liberty, Ellis Island and Governors Island. Various monuments and
statues ranging from Jewish immigrants to Celtic settlers to the city's
first wireless telegraph operators adorn the park.
Before a landfill closed the gap, Castle Clinton , the 1811 fort
on the west side of the park, was on an island, one of several forts
defending New York Harbor. Later it acted as a pre-Ellis Island dropoff
point for arriving immigrants. Today, the squat castle is the place to
buy tickets for and board ferries to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis
Island.
Bowling Green
#4 or
#5 train to Bowling Green.
Broadway comes to a gentle end at
Bowling Green Park
, originally the city's meat market, but in 1733 turned into an oval of
turf used for the game by colonial Brits on a lease of "one peppercorn
per year." In 1626, the green had been the location of one of
Manhattan's more memorable business deals, when Peter Minuit, first
director general of the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, bought the whole
island from the Indians for a bucket of trade goods worth sixty guilders
(about $24). The other side of the story (and the part you never hear)
was that these particular Indians didn't actually own the island.
The
green sees plenty of office folk picnicking in the shadow of Cass
Gilbert's US Customs House , a heroic monument to the Port of New
York and home of the Smithsonian National Museum of the American
Indian , 1 Bowling Green (daily 10am-5pm; free; tel 212/514-3700,
www.si.edu/nmai ). This excellent collection of artifacts from
almost every tribe native to the Americas was largely assembled by one
man, George Gustav Heye (1874-1957), who traveled throughout the
Americas picking up such works for over fifty years. Built in 1907, the
Customs House itself was intended to pay homage to the booming maritime
market. The four statues were sculpted by Daniel Chester French,
who also created the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. As if French
foresaw the House's current use, the sculptor blatantly comments on the
mistreatment of Indians in his statues.
Federal Reserve Plaza
Take Nassau Street north of Wall to Maiden Lane, where you'll find
Phillip Johnson and John Burgee's Federal Reserve Plaza , which
complements the original 1924 Federal Reserve Bank. Eighty feet below
the somber neo-Gothic interior of the bank are most of the "free"
world's gold reserves. It is possible - but tricky - to tour; contact
the Public Information Department, Federal Reserve Bank, 33 Liberty St,
New York, NY 10045 (phone 212/720-6130) several
weeks ahead - tickets have to be mailed.
Retrace your steps along Nassau to Liberty Street , which leads
west toward Liberty Plaza. At no. 1, you'll find the US Steel
Building . When the World Trade Center collapsed, many of the US
Steel Building's windows popped out, and it was feared that the building
itself would tumble.
South
Street Seaport
#A,
#E, #J, #M, #1, #2, #4 or #5 train to Fulton Street-Broadway Nassau.
At
the eastern end of Fulton Street, the South Street Seaport is a
mixed bag - a fair slice of commercial gentrification that was necessary
to woo developers and tourists, plus the presence of a centuries-old
working fish market that has kept things real. It dates back to the
1600s, when this stretch of the waterside was New York's sailship port.
When the FDR Drive was constructed in the 1950s, the Seaport's decline
was rapid, but private initiative beginning in 1967 rescued the
remaining warehouses and saved the historic seaport just in time.
Regular guided tours of the Seaport run from the Visitors' Center
, located at 12-14 Fulton St.
Explore South Street Seaport
Fulton
Fish Market
#A,
#E, #J, #M, #1, #2, #4 or #5 train to Fulton Street-Broadway Nassau.
The
elevated East Side Highway forms a suitably grimy gateway to the Fulton
Fish Market, the city's oldest and largest wholesale outlet. Business
has been done on this site since 1835 and now generates over a billion
dollars in revenues annually. If you can manage it, the best time to
visit is around 5am when buyers' trucks park up beneath the highway to
collect the catches. Otherwise, tours can be arranged through the South
Street Seaport Museum the first and third Wednesday of the month,
April-Oct (phone 212/748-8786). The market will move to Hunts Point in the
Bronx in 2003
Pier
17
To many, Pier 17 , right next to the Fulton Fish Market, has
become the focal point of the district, created from the old fish market
pier demolished and then restored in 1982. A three-story glass-and-steel
pavilion houses all kinds of restaurants and shops; a bit more
interesting is the outdoor promenade, always crowded in the summer, when
you can listen to free music, tour historic moored ships or book cruises
with the New York Waterway (two-hour cruises $12; phone 1-800/533-3779).
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Just across South Street, there's an assemblage of upmarket chain shops.
Yet keep your eyes peeled for some unusual buildings preserved here,
like at
203
Front St
; this giant J. Crew store was an 1880s hotel that catered to unmarried
laborers on the dock. Not far away, cleaned-up Schermerhorn Row
is a unique ensemble of Georgian-Federal-style early warehouses, dating
to about 1811.
Seaport Museum
207 Water St. Daily: April-Sept 10am-6pm, Oct-March 10am-5pm; $5,
includes all tours, films, galleries and museum-owned ships, as well as
New York Unearthed; phone 212/748-8600.
Housed in a series of painstakingly restored 1830s warehouses, the
South Street Seaport Museum offers a collection of refitted ships
and chubby tugboats (the largest collection of sailing vessels - by
tonnage - in the US). It also features a handful of maritime art and
trades exhibits, a museum store and info about the Fulton Fish Market.
For a
stellar view of the Brooklyn Bridge, have a seat on the benches or have
your photo taken in front of one of the most beautiful backdrops New
York City has to offer.
St
Paul’s Chapel and South on Broadway
The oldest church in Manhattan, St Paul's Chapel
dates from 1766 - eighty years earlier than Trinity Church, almost
prehistoric by New York standards. George Washington worshipped here and
his pew, zealously treasured, is on show. Heading south along Broadway,
a most impressive leftover of the confident days before the Wall Street
Crash is the old
Cunard
Building
, at no. 25. Its marble walls and high dome once housed a steamship's
booking office - hence the elaborate, whimsical murals of variegated
ships and nautical mythology splashed around the ceiling. Today, it
houses a post office - one that's been fitted with little feeling for
the exuberant space it occupies. On the second floor is the New York
City Police Museum (Tues-Sat 10am-6pm; free; phone 212/301-4440), housing a collection of 250 years worth
of memorabilia of the New York Police Department, the largest and oldest
in the country.
At
26 Broadway, located in the former headquarters of John D.
Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company , is the Museum of American
Financial History 28 Broadway (Tues-Sat 10am-4pm; $2;
phone212/908-4110). This is the largest
public archive of financial documents and artifacts in the world,
featuring such finance-related objects as the bond signed by Washington
bearing the first dollar sign ever used on a Federal document. On
Fridays, the museum also offers a "World of Finance" walking tour ($15).
Wall
Street and the Stock Exchange|
The Dutch arrived here first, building a wooden wall at the edge of New
Amsterdam in 1635 to protect themselves from British settlers to the
north and giving the narrow canyon of today's Wall Street its
name. Still today, from behind the Neoclassical facade of the New
York Stock Exchange on 8 Wall St, the purse strings of the
capitalist world are pulled.
Come before noon for the best chance of getting into the NYSE
Interactive Education Center , 20 Wall St (Mon-Fri 8.45am-4.30pm;
free; tel 212/656-3000, www.nyse.com ), where the Exchange floor
appears like a melee of brokers and buyers, scrambling for the elusive
fractional cent on which to make a megabuck. After sitting through a
glib introductory film and a small exhibition on the history of the
Exchange, the hectic scurrying and constantly moving hieroglyphs of the
stock prices will make more sense.
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Explore Wall Street and the Stock Exchange
Federal Hall
26
Wall St (Mon-Fri 9am-5pm; free; phone 212/825-6888, #1,
#2, #4 or #5 trains to Wall Street.
The Federal Hall National Memorial
at the Wall Street's canyon-like head, can't help but look like an Ionic
temple that woke up one morning and found itself surrounded by
skyscrapers. The building was built by Town and Davis as the Customs
House in the 1830s and served briefly as the first capitol of the United
States. There is an exhibition inside that tells the story of how
democracy got its start some sixty years earlier when printer John Peter
Zenger was acquitted of libel in 1735.
Trinity Church
At Wall Street's western end is
Trinity Church
(Mon-Sat free guided tours daily at 2pm), first built in 1698, though
the current version went up in 1846. For fifty years, this was the
city's tallest building, a reminder of just how relatively recent
high-rise Manhattan sprung up. Trinity's cemetery is the final resting
place for such luminaries as the first secretary of the Treasury,
Alexander Hamilton, steamboat king Robert Fulton, signer of the
Declaration of Independence Francis Lewis and many others.
Trinity Church is an oddity amid its office-building neighbors, several
of which are worth nosing into. One Wall Street , immediately
opposite the church, is among the best, with an Art Deco lobby in red
and gold. East down Wall Street, the Morgan Guaranty Trust Building
, at no. 23, bears the scars of a weird happening on September 16, 1920
when a horse-drawn cart exploded in front. The explosion remains
unexplained to this day and the pockmark scars on the building's wall
have never been repaired.
Water
and Pearl Streets
Walk through Robert F. Wagner Park to
Water
Street
and turn east down Old Slip. The pocket-size palazzo, which was once the
First Precinct Police Station , slots easily into the narrow
strip, a cheerful throwback to a different era. A little to the south,
off Water Street, stands the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial , an
assembly of sad and often haunting mementos. A recent renovation has
made the place a peaceful spot for contemplation - and enjoying a nice
view of the East River.
The
eighteenth-century
Fraunces Tavern Museum
, 54 Pearl St at Broad Street (Mon-Fri 9am-5pm; $3, children, seniors,
students $2; phone 212/425-1778 ),
has survived extensive modification, several fires and
nineteenth-century use as a hotel. The Tavern's second floor re-creates
the site's history with a series of illustrated panels.
At
6 Pearl St, you'll find New York Unearthed (Mon-Fri noon-6pm;
free; phone 212/748-8628), the South Street Seaport Museum's tiny,
hands-on, annex devoted to the city's archeology.
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