Lenape site Bowling Green was a significant cultural site before European colonization. There may have been a residence for the chief of a local
Lenape Native American tribe at the southern end of the Wickquasgeck trail (modern-day Broadway). There was also a large elm at the end of the trail, where the trail split. It is likely at Bowling Green that the Dutch Governor
Peter Minuit purchased Manhattan for $24 worth of merchandise in 1626.
Colonial era The park has long been a center of activity in the city, going back to colonial
New Amsterdam, when it served as a cattle market between 1638 and 1647, and a
parade ground. In 1675, the city's
Common Council designated the "plaine afore the forte" for an annual market of "graine, cattle and other produce of the country". In 1677, the city's first public well was dug in front of
Fort Amsterdam at Bowling Green. In 1733, the Common Council leased a portion of the parade grounds to three prominent neighboring landlords for a
peppercorn a year, upon their promise to create a park that would be "the delight of the Inhabitants of the City" and add to its "Beauty and Ornament"; the improvements were to include a "
bowling green" with "walks therein". The surrounding streets were not paved with
cobblestones until 1744. On August 21, 1770, the
British government erected a gilded lead
equestrian statue of
King George III in Bowling Green; the King was dressed in
Roman garb in the style of the
Equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius. The statue had been commissioned in 1766, along with a statue of
William Pitt, from the prominent
London sculptor
Joseph Wilton, as a celebration of victory after the
Seven Years' War. With the rapid deterioration of relations with the mother country after 1770, the statue became a magnet for the Bowling Green protests. In 1773, the city passed an anti-
graffiti and anti-
desecration law to counter vandalism against the monument, and a protective cast-iron fence was built along the perimeter of the park; the fence is still extant, making it the city's oldest fence. On July 9, 1776, after the
Declaration of Independence was read to
Washington's troops at the current site of
City Hall, local
Sons of Liberty rushed down Broadway to Bowling Green to topple the statue of King George III; in the process,
finials on the tops of the fence depicting the royal symbol of a crown were sawed off. one is in the
Museum of the City of New York, and one is in Connecticut. (estimated total of 260–270 pounds); In 1991 the left hand and forearm of the statue was found in Wilton Connecticut; likewise 9 lead musket balls from the Monmouth Battlefield had the same lead content as the statue The stone slab on which the statue rested was used as a gravestone before becoming part of the collection of the New-York Historical Society; the stone pedestal itself remained until it was torn down. The event has been depicted over the years in several works of art, including an 1854 painting by
William Walcutt, and an 1859 painting by
Johannes Adam Simon Oertel. On November 25, 1783, a U.S. soldier managed to rip down the British flag at Bowling Green and replace it with the
Stars and Stripes—an apparently difficult feat, since the British had greased the flagpole. As the defeated British military boarded ships back to England, then-General George Washington triumphantly led the
Continental Army through Manhattan down to Bowling Green to witness the last British troops sailing away from Lower Manhattan.
Postcolonial era The marble slab of the statue's pedestal was first used as the tombstone of a Major John Smith of the
Black Watch, who died in 1783 and was buried at a burial ground across the
Hudson River at
Paulus Hook in what is now
Jersey City, New Jersey. When Smith's grave site was leveled in 1804, the slab became a stone step at two successive mansions in Jersey City. The latter was the Van Vorst Mansion that was owned by
Cornelius Van Vorst where the stone remained from 1854 to 1874. In 1880 the inscription was rediscovered, and the slab was transferred to the New-York Historical Society. The monument base can be seen in the background of the portrait of George Washington painted by
John Trumbull in 1790, now sited in
City Hall. The William Pitt statue is in the New-York Historical Society. as the Custom House, 1799–1815; Bowling Green shown on the left Following the Revolution, the remains of Fort Amsterdam facing Bowling Green were demolished in 1790 and part of the rubble used to extend Battery Park to the west. In its place a grand
Government House was built, suitable, it was hoped, for a president's house, with a four-columned
portico facing across Bowling Green and up Broadway.
Governor John Jay later inhabited it. When the state capital was moved to Albany, the building served as a boarding house and then the
custom house before being demolished in 1815. Elegant townhouses were built around the park which remained largely the private domain of the residents, though now some of the
Tory patricians of New York were replaced by
Republican ones; leading New York merchants, led by
Abraham Kennedy, in a mansion at 1 Broadway that had a facade under a central pediment and a front towards the Battery Parade, as the new piece of open ground was called. The Hon. John Watts, whose summer place was
Rose Hill;
Chancellor Robert Livingston at number 5,
Stephen Whitney at number 7, and
John Stevens all constructed brick residences in
Federal style facing Bowling Green. The
Alexander Macomb House, the second Presidential Mansion, stood north of the park at 39–41 Broadway. President George Washington occupied it from February 23 to August 30, 1790, before the U.S. capital was moved to
Philadelphia. In 1825, Bowling Green Park was "laid down in grass". At the time, it was an
ellipse with a diameter of on the north–south axis and on the east–west axis. By 1850, with the opening of
Lafayette Street and the subsequent completions of
Washington Square Park and
Fifth Avenue, the general northward migration of residences in
Manhattan led to the conversion of the residences into shipping offices, resulting in full public access to the park.
20th and 21st centuries The park was described in 1926 as having "walks, benches,
sumac trees and poorly-kept
[sic] lawns", as well as a fountain in the center used by local children to cool off in the summer. It suffered neglect after
World War II. Starting in 1972, the city renovated Bowling Green to restore its 17th-century character. In conjunction with the park's renovation, the
Bowling Green subway station underneath the park was expanded, necessitating the temporary excavation of the park. The renovation faced a lack of funds during the
1975 New York City fiscal crisis but was completed in the late 1970s. The Bowling Green Fence and Park were listed on the U.S.
National Register of Historic Places in 1980. In 1989, the sculpture
Charging Bull by
Arturo Di Modica was installed at the northern tip of the park by the
New York City Department of Parks and Recreation after it had been confiscated by the police following its illegal installation on
Wall Street. The sculpture has become one of the most popular and recognizable landmarks of the Financial District. commemorating the location of a pivotal event in the
American Revolutionary War that ended a seven-year occupation by British troops. ==Description and surroundings==