Colonial History of the Financial District

This is New York's origin story. What made it become what we know and love today, a cosmopolitan city of millions? Can we actually, 400 years later, trace some of the city's greatness to a small village at the tip of Manhattan with a few thousand residents? It seems we can. The tour will take you from the precolonial background of the area through the Dutch and English colonial periods, through the Revolutionary War era all the way to the inauguration of George Washington. We will explore where it all began to better understand what is here now. Mostly we will ignore everything on our way that was built after 1789 but some stories and anecdotes of the later periods are so curious that I would love to still share them with you. 10% of all my profits go to support Ukrainian Armed Forces

We'll start at Bowling Green where the story of New York's colonization began and where, it so happened, the War for Independence started and also ended for New Yorkers. Our route will take us through the Battery, where we'll learn the history of the "Purchase of Manhattan" and the English fortifications, to the colonial streets of New Amsterdam. Here we will find out if the oldest building in Manhattan is really that old and will explore the archeological dig revealing XVII century foundations in the heart of the Financial District. We will imagine the Palisades that gave Wall street its name and how the thoroughfare looked like in preparations for Washington's first inauguration.