Bowling Green

Bowling Green Review

Perhaps most recognized as the home of Arturo Di Modica's 7,000-pound, bronze Charging Bull statue (1989), Bowling Green, at the foot of Broadway, became New York's first public park in 1733. Legend has it that before that, this was the sight where Peter Minuit purchased the island of Manhattan from the Native Americans, in 1626, supposedly for what amounted to 24 U.S. dollars. On July 9, 1776, a few hours after citizens learned about the signing of the Declaration of Independence, rioters toppled a statue of British King George III that had occupied the spot for 11 years; much of the statue's lead was melted down into bullets. In 1783, when the occupying British forces fled the city, they defiantly hoisted a Union Jack on a greased, uncleated flagpole so it couldn't be lowered; patriot John Van Arsdale drove his own cleats into the pole to replace the flag with the Stars and Stripes. The copper-top subway entrance here is the original one, built in 1904-05.