New York’s City Hall Park: A Physical Space for New York City’s Public

Part of: Society for Historical Archaeology 2014

Once known as The Common, City Hall Park has been home to the poor, the jailed, British soldiers and mercenaries and today reigns as the seat of municipal power for New York City. Used as physical space for public institutions and public performances, it has been constructed and transformed, most recently in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, as a show piece of history and municipality. Excavations have been used to exemplify the importance of this property and to provide hard facts about its history, transformations and those who are part of the story.

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  • Documents (5)
Documents
  • Brothels and Bones: What City Hall Has Taught Us About 19th-Century Women and Sex Work (2014)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Lisa Geiger.

    Set amidst a burgeoning downtown populace, the Commons now housing City Hall Park was a blurred boundary between soldiers, legislators, prisoners, and laborers from across the cityscape. Often lost in this picture, however, are the intimate activities of women living in the nineteenth century. Examining material finds related to feminine hygiene and health care and engaging with the historic and modern taboos of female sexuality and sex work brings to light the everyday experiences of women...

  • The Changing Face of Manhattan: From Forested Hills to City Hall Park (2014)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Daniel Eichinger.

    When considering Manhattan’s landscape, one envisions a level and gridded metropolis. This was not the face that Manhattan presented to Henry Hudson in 1609 or even to John McComb Jr. when the construction of his new City Hall began in 1803. Where skyscrapers now form the upper canopy and lesser buildings comprise the urban underbrush, the landscape consisted of teeming forests, marshes, streams, and many hills and gullies. In fact, the island was so hilly, it was named ‘Mannahatta’ or The...

  • Extreme Makeover: Transforming New York City’s Common (2014)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Alyssa Loorya.

    New York’s City Hall Park has exhibited three distinct identities since the founding of New Amsterdam. Originally utilized to extend the Dutch tradition of Common lands in the new world it’s remote location made it an ideal setting to house unwanted populations in the eighteenth century. Following the Revolutionary War and the ensuing expansion of the city this parcel of land was transformed into the municipal crown of New York City. Archaeology has documented the transformation of these...

  • Smoking Pipes, St. Tammany, the Masons, and New York City Patronage Jobs (2014)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Meta Janowitz.

    Among the smoking pipes found during the New York City Hall excavations are a number with Masonic motifs and a few with an unusual motif: a figure with a headdress holding a spear along with a shield or coat of arms topped by flames. The figure might be the mythical St. Tammany. When most modern people hear the name of ‘Tammany’ they usually recall the immensely powerful and corrupt political organization that controlled New York politics from the early nineteenth into the mid-twentieth...

  • Swept Under the Rug: Strategic Placement of Almshouses in New York City and Philadelphia (2014)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Mara Kaktins.

    Cities from the colonial period until the present day have tried to conceal their ‘problem populations’ from the view of the general public. These ‘unworthy’ individuals, housed in Almshouses, penitentiaries, asylums, and the like have traditionally been hidden by placing such institutions on the outskirts of urban centers. Substantial walls, lavish gardens, and formal architecture were also utilized to disguise the true nature of these complexes. Inevitably, rapidly growing cities...