New York City Hall Park is a photograph by Vadim Levin which was uploaded on December 6th, 2013.
New York City Hall Park
This photograph was taken at one of the February evening at the New York City Hall Park.... more
by Vadim Levin
Title
New York City Hall Park
Artist
Vadim Levin
Medium
Photograph
Description
This photograph was taken at one of the February evening at the New York City Hall Park.
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City Hall Park, located in downtown Manhattan, has played a key role in New York civic life for centuries, from its Colonial beginnings as a rebel outpost to its current function as the seat of City government. The land has been used, among other things, as a pasture, a prison, a parade ground, a public execution site, an almshouse, an art museum, and a post office.
From 1653 to 1699 this area was known as the Commons and served as a communal pasture ground for livestock. The parks western boundary was a Native American trail that later became Broadway. An almshouse for the Citys poor stood on this site from 1736 to 1797, at which point a second almshouse was built; archaeological evidence of the first structure was unearthed in 1989.
In 1757 construction began on a debtors prison and a soldiers barracks on the north end of the Commons where the Tweed Courthouse now stands. In 1765 New Yorkers protested the Stamp Act at the site, and a year later the first Liberty Pole, a commemorative mast topped by a vane featuring the word liberty, was built by pro-independence New Yorkers; a replica dating to 1921 now stands between City Hall and Broadway, near its original location. During the American Revolution (1776-1783) the British controlled New York and used the debtors prison to hold Revolutionary prisoners of war, executing 250 of them on gallows located behind the Soldiers Barracks.
Source: http://www.nycgovparks.org/parks/cityhallpark/history
Uploaded
December 6th, 2013