Skip to content Skip to sidebar Skip to footer

Alexander Hamilton Custom House - The Continents - Asia Bowling Green


The Alexander Hamilton Custom House is one of New York's finest examples of Beaux Arts architecture, incorporating City Beautiful Movement planning principles with architecture, engineering, and fine arts. The seven story structure with 450,000 square feet sits on three city block in Bowling Green. It is here, at the southern terminus of the old Algonquin trade route, Wiechquaekeck Trail, that Peter Minuet purchased the island of Manhattes for trinkets valued at 60 guilders, or about $24, from the Lenape Indians in 1626. Soon thereafter the Dutch West India Company built Fort Amsterdam on this site, which came to be the nucleus for the New Amsterdam settlement. After the American Revolution the fort was replaced by the brick Government House, which was intended to be but never used as a residence for the President. Instead it became the residence of New York Governors DeWitt Clinton and John Jay. The building served briefly as the Custom House from 1799 and 1815 before being torn down and replaced with rowhouses.

Post a Comment for "Alexander Hamilton Custom House - The Continents - Asia Bowling Green"