Battery Pl Between State St and West St

With Bowling Green behind us, the sparsely populated Battery Place is a mostly-open concrete sidewalk. Sure, the park offers a respite to the south, but the sheer width of the space here makes it seem like almost a chore to make your way over there. Across the street, One Broadway lines the street with a series of great marine-inspried images. Previously owned by the International Mercantile Marine Company, the plaques surrounding the second floor list a series of ports-of-call, while two entrances on the ground floor are labeled "First Class" and "Cabin Class". 

Though significantly less ornate, the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel air shaft (which may also hold offices? Anyone?) is also a rather interesting building to look at. Perhaps better known from the movies as headquarters for the Men In Black, this is one of the more plain-looking air shafts around the city. I'm always amazed more attention isn't given to them, since they show up at every underground river crossing.

Before entering Battery Park City, a large, classic-looking building currently known as "Ocean" sits at 1 West Street. Claiming to be the "First address in Manhattan" (I didn't know addresses were necessarily ordered outside of their street numbers), the building is just over 100 years old. Digging in a little deeper I found that this was originally the Whitehall Building, and is landmarked. The taller building behind it is actually one in the same; known originally as Greater Whitehall, it was built only 5 years after the original structure since it had been such a big hit.

State St Between Whitehall St and Battery Pl

As you would expect, the very tip of Manhattan can be a bit of a convoluted mess thanks to the 33 different streets all trying to terminate at the same spot. State Street tries to clean up that mess a bit by wrapping around and separating the Ferry Terminal and Battery Park from the street grid. "State" is just one of a number of names this road has; if you follow it up in either direction long enough you get Broadway on the west and Bowery on the east. If you were intent on doing it, you could actually start here at the tip of State Street and follow Broadway all the way up to Sleepy Hollow in Westchester County.

Right in the middle of all this activity are two very different buildings. Against the waterfront is the Staten Island Ferry Terminal. A new building, that I'll admit is pretty inviting, it also holds an entrance to the new South Ferry subway station. Across the street is a much more humble structure known as the James Watson House. Originally the home of Elizabeth Ann Seton – the first American-born saint – it's now a New York City Landmark. Looking absolutely dwarfed amongst the towering skyscrapers it reminds me a bit of The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton. In between both the ferry terminal and the humble hut is what appears to be an utter wasteland of construction. Embarrassingly, I have no clue what they're working on here.

Following the street around the bend, there isn't much of note. Of course there's the always-great Battery Park, which is one of my favorite places to walk around when I'm in this area. Across the way a series of rather anonymous buildings sit in a row.

Making your way up to Battery Place (and the name change to Broadway) the US Custom House takes over the landscape. The beautiful Beaux-Arts building is well-known for its series of statues and architectural embellishments. Finished in 1907, the Custom House is actually one of only a few Government buildings constructed under the Tarsney Act which allowed private architects to design federal buildings. The act was repealed in 1913. One of the statues that line the front entrance can be seen on the cover of New York Changing, a book I've mentioned here before. Across from the Custom House a much smaller, but equally beautiful Bowling Green subway shelter sits all alone.