Bowling Green:
The Birthplace of New York

By Richard B. Marrin

Bowling Green started as a Leni Lenape Indian Council Grounds.  It was there, when Dutch Governor Peter Minuit, in 1626, purchased Manhattan for $24 worth of merchandise. It is New York City’s birthplace.

The location came to be called Capske Hook by the Dutch, a term derived from a Native American tongue meaning “rocky ledge”. To its north, was an Indian trail: a natural ridge along the spine of Manhattan that became the island’s major trade route. Called Heere Staat (High Street), we now know it as Broadway.

The site was opposite Fort Amsterdam, erected by the Dutch in 1625 to protect them from attack. In its only test, it was surrendered to the British in 1664 and renamed Fort George. Near where the Museum of the American Indian is today, it was demolished in 1788; its rubble becoming the landfill that created Battery Park and the extended shoreline.

In the early days, Bowling Green was the parade ground, where soldiers marched and drilled. Then called Marckyveldt, it made an ideal market place as well. The Dutch sold cattle there from 1638 through 1647. In 1675, the Common Council of New York designated the “plaine afore the forte” for an annual market of “graine, cattle and other produce of the country” — an original farmer’s market. It still occasionally serves as a public market today.

Second Century: a not so Public or Quiet Park

In 1733, the Common Council leased a portion of the parade grounds to three prominent neighbors for a peppercorn a year, promising to create a park that would be “the delight of the Inhabitants of the City” and add to its “Beauty and Ornament “. According to Gotham, by Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace, the improvements included a “bowling green”: on the site with “walks therein”.

This makes Bowling Green the oldest existing public park in New York City, technically public, at least. History suggests Bowling Green, with its walks, trees and neatly painted fence, was then more for the elite to escape the commotion of the waterfront, than for a longshoreman’s lunch hour.

By the 1760s, a visitor would find the fashionable residences of New York’s prominent citizens: the Van Cortlandts, Livingstons, Delanceys, Bayards and De Peysters in the immediate vicinity of Bowling Green. The Governor’s mansion stood nearby at Whitehall Street. In 1744, as a measure against the muddy streets, the streets were laid with the cobblestones, still there today.

But, at times, Bowling Green would explode with throngs of the Common Man, sometimes celebrating, other times protesting. For example, on November 1, 1765, the day the hated Stamp Tax became effective, a mob marched down Broadway, carrying an effigy of the Royal Governor. They threw rocks and bricks at Fort George, dared the Governor to come out.  Then, it was off to Bowling Green, a few yards away. There, the mob burned the effigies as well as the Governor’s coach.

Later, when the Stamp Act had been repealed, the colonists thought a bit more kindly of King George III and in gratitude, erected in Bowling Green, a statute of him on horseback. In 1770, the statute was dedicated and a year later, an iron fence was built around the park to protect it.
When it became obvious that George III meant to punish the colonists and assert greater control over the colonies, the mob’s gratitude turned to hate. And where best to express that sentiment? At Bowling Green, of course.

When, in July, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was read to George Washington’s troops, they reacted by marching with the Sons of Liberty to Bowling Green and the six-year-old monument to the tyrant George III. The fence was knocked town and the statue toppled. King George’s head was cut off and put on a spike. The rest of the statue was chopped up and shipped to a Connecticut foundry to be made into some 40,000 Patriot bullets.
However, the Americans could not retain control of New York City. Later that summer, they torched much of it and retreated to New Jersey. During the rest of the war, New York was an occupied city. General Howe, British Commander in North America, chose Bowling Green as his residence/headquarters, amid the remaining prosperous merchant families still loyal to the Crown. Cricket was played in Bowling Green Park during the British occupation!

On November 25, 1783, long celebrated in New York City as Evacuation Day, the British finally gave up their last presence in the United States of America and minutes later George Washington re-entered in triumph.

Return to Elegance

After the Revolution, Downtown New York City was the place to be. A stretch of Broadway, running north a mile from Bowling Green, was lined with the homes of rich merchants and professionals. It was the center of society and fashion. Improvements in the 1790s included, sidewalks of brick and fieldstone and Lombardy Poplars planted to replace those burned as firewood during the war. Fort George was razed and Broadway extended to a bulkhead that ran between Whitehall and Battery Place. Elegant townhouses were built around Bowling Green in the early 19th century and the park was privatized as the exclusive domain of its wealthy neighbors.

The public did not get full access to the park until 1850, when the merchants in the middle of a busy, noisy waterfront became commuters, moving uptown or to Brooklyn Heights or Hoboken. Their private homes were converted into shipping offices and later with the invention of the elevator, into skyscrapers.

In the early 1900s , the park was disrupted by the construction of the IRT subway beneath it and its bowling green was removed to Central Park. The park was spruced up for the 1939 World’s Fair but fell into neglect until the mid 1970’s, when it was again restored.  More renovation was done again in 1990.