Chambers Street between Greenwich Street and West Side Hwy		(40.716546,-74.011349)
Vauxhall Gardens	Greenwich Street between Chambers and Warren Streets	(40.715985, -74.011207)
In 1765, the first Vauxhall Garden in NYC sat on a hill overlooking the Hudson River at Greenwich Street between Chambers and Warren Streets. That year, this former aristocratic neighborhood, at one time a part of Lispenard's Meadows, was invaded by taverns, also known as mead gardens, roadhouses and pleasure resorts. Vauxhall Gardens and Ranelagh Gardens were two of them. In this garden on June 11th, 1785, the first Catholic church in NYC was incorporated. When they couldn’t get the old Exchange Building at the lower end of Broad Street, the church founders obtained a site at Barclay and Church Streets, and this original St. Peter's Church conducted its first Mass on November 4th, 1786. This, the first Catholic church in NYC, was a simple brick building measuring 48-by-81 ft. In 1806, an anti-immigrant mob attacked St. Peter's on Christmas Eve. This first Nativist American attack on the Irish Catholics was followed by the burning of St. Mary's Church in 1831 and an attack on St. Patrick's original Church (north of Prince Street) in 1835. By the following year, the small decaying church was razed and the current St. Peter's was built at double the size. Taken over by a Frenchman named Delacroix, the second Vauxhall Garden opened in 1798 between Grand and Broome Streets and Mulberry and Lafayette Streets on the former site of Bayards Mound (Centre, Broome, Mott and Grand Streets). Vauxhall Gardens featured flying horses (a precursor to the carousel and the merry-go-round), mead booths, concerts and fireworks at night. NYC's third version of Vauxhall Gardens, built in 1804-1805, used the Sperry's Gardens site, across from the La Grange Terrace (Colonnade Row). This garden stretched north to Astor Place on the east side of Lafayette Street. Broadway and Bowery, from 4th Street to Astor Place, was actually given the name Vauxhall because of the Gardens there. Delacroix leased the land for the third garden from John Jacob Astor, who bought Sperry's Gardens in 1804. He bought it from Swiss physician Jacob Sperry, who had created NYC’s first botanical garden at Lafayette and Astor Place. John Jacob Astor bought his first tract of NYC land in 1789. In 1805, Astor and partner John Beekman bought the Park Theatre. In 1828, Astor paid $101,000 for the City Hotel, and then he built the Astor Hotel in 1836. Astor died in 1848, the richest man in America who made $20 million from furs, opium, shipping as well as real estate. Greenwich Street got the first elevated train track in 1868, thus launching America’s rapid transit system. Running on tracks constructed 30 feet over the street, noisy trains powered by steam engines would shake buildings and spew oil, cinders and ashes. Soon, elevated tracks cast more shadows over Third, Sixth and finally Second Avenues. The last el in Manhattan, the Third Avenue line, was demolished in 1955.
Bear Market	West side of Greenwich Street between Fulton and Vesey Streets	(40.712443, -74.012189)
Why did butcher Jacob Finck display a bear in his store window in 1771? Well, Finck and his pals killed it after it swam the Hudson from New Jersey. He cut up the bear, and his customers declared it good meat to eat at a time when usually only Indians, hunters and slaves would partake of it. New Yorkers developed a taste for bear meat, and this downtown market would sell any that was brought into the city. Thus, the market became known as Bear Market. Located on the west side of Greenwich Street between Fulton and Vesey Streets, the market used land donated by Trinity Church (by the former World Trade Center site). It was in business before the Washington Market took over the location around Vesey and Washington Streets. After the American Revolution, early NYC handbooks joked that Bear Market should be called Bare Market because of its lack of business, few supplies, and the general desolation of this western neighborhood. But traffic increased dramatically after the Erie Canal opened in 1825. The markets off the Hudson expanded up to the meat-packing district, which still retains the old market look. Hundreds of vendors sold hay, wild game (bear included), livestock, fruits, vegetables, and other specialty foods. A million people a day ate meals prepared from the supplies NYC's hotel and restaurants obtained at this expanded market.
Canvas Town / Topsail Town / Fire of 1776	West Side from the Battery to Barclay Street	(40.711386, -74.01206)
During the Revolutionary War, Bear Market was deserted with no business but for some hay sales, so the British cavalry used it as barracks for low-ranking soldiers, who were seen as the troops’ vilest dregs. The Fire of September 21st, 1776, burnt a quarter of the entire area of NYC over two days, creating a whole district west of Broad Street with a neighborhood rising nearly overnight from the smoldering ashes. First called Canvas Town and then dubbed Topsail Town by the resident vagrants and prostitutes, the settlement began with tent huts and shanties created from ships, old canvases securing the remaining parts of burnt walls and old chimneys. Mainly, the British Army and Tory refugees used Canvas Town as the countryside was full of patriots so the British sympathizing Torys fled into the city. Not until 1784 when the British left town, did NYC's grand jury start to battle the problem of the ragtag settlement. The Fire of 1776 was mostly likely set by unknown early American patriots. George Washington said, “Providence, or some good honest fellow, has done more for us than we were disposed to do for ourselves.” The fire of 1776 made the British occupation rather uncomfortable. On Whitehall Street, five days into the seizure of NYC by the British, three resin-soaked logs were set on fire in three buildings. This act of arson at a sailor's brothel, an inn, and the Fighting Cocks Tavern proceeded to destroy almost 500 buildings, including the Trinity and the Old Lutheran Church. Parishioners threw water on the blazes and saved St. Paul's Church but the fire spread further northwest and ended at Barclay Street just before the open land of Kings College. Most if not all of the town firemen became soldiers who followed Washington into Harlem Heights so unfortunately for the British Navy, they had to act as firemen. Too bad the American Revolution interrupted the municipally owned reservoir started in 1774 according to Christopher Colles’ plans. They might have been able to use the water from the project on White Street that would have spanned water from Collect Pond down the east side of Broadway using hollow pine logs. Some town cisterns were emptied, and many fire buckets' handles were cut, probably a deliberate act on the side of the patriots. And no one heard warnings of the 1776 fire were because all the bells were melted for ammo.
Washington Market	Between Washington and West Streets and Vesey and Fulton Streets	(40.712834, -74.013519)
Washington Market at the foot of Fulton Street, the most famous market in NYC's history, opened in an indoor facility with a city-built facade on December 16th, 1832, by the old site of the Bear Market. The original Washington Market was an open-air bazaar full of fish and country market goods, which opened in 1813 between Washington and West Streets on one side and Vesey and Fulton Streets on the other. It was first called the Country Market, then the Fish Market, and the Exterior Market. The market also had a bell tower for fire warnings on the high ground at Vesey and Washington Streets. The indoor Washington Market had over 800 vendors for wild game, livestock, fruits, vegetables, hay and specialty foods. A million people a day in NYC ate meals prepared from the footstuffs the hotels and restaurants acquired from the market. For many years, it was the largest wholesale produce market in the U.S. The world famous Washington Market was removed to make room for the World Trade Center in 1967. West Washington Market, an subsidiary of the Washington Market, was first erected by NYC on the bulkheads and wharves opposite the original market by Dey and Barclay Streets. In 1889, West Washington Market moved to ten two-story brick buildings at the present day meatpacking district by 13th Street between Washington and West Streets, and between Gansevoort and West 12th Streets. This area got hot when the Erie Canal opened in 1825, and the southerly markets off the Hudson expanded up into it. NYC set up this second West Washington Market as ten two-story brick buildings that had the piers to their back and West Street in the front (the Sanitation Department is there today). The West Washington Market specialized in meat and poultry but also dealt great quantities of fruits and vegetables. It was demolished in 1950, and the site was taken over by trash barges of the Gansevoort Garbage Terminal until 1981.
Comfort's Tea Water	Greenwich Street between Thames and Cedar Streets	(40.709589, -74.013122)
Gerardus Comfort was a cooper, a carpenter specializing in wooden casks or tubs , and Comfort's dock was by Hughson's Tavern on the Hudson. Comfort's Tea Water came from a spring off Greenwich between Thames and Cedar Streets. Comfort's water was considered far superior to any local public well at the time.
John Hughson's Tavern	On the Hudson River between Thames and Cedar Streets	(40.709825, -74.01397)
Fronted by the Hudson River (which would be just west of Washington Street), John Hughson's Tavern opened in 1738 between Cedar and Thames Streets, by Comforts dock and north of Trinity Church (see 1729 Lynn Map). Four black slaves named Caesar, Prince, Cuffee and Quack -- gin-swilling arsonists of the Geneva Club gang -- were pawning stuff at Hughson's tavern, and that started the trail of evidence uncovering the 1741 NY Conspiracy. The Landscapes of Conspiracy map (1741) puts the tavern at Crown (Liberty) Street and the Hudson River, just east of today’s West Side Highway. Other sources place it just west of Greenwich Street by Rector Street. The Geneva Club’s criminal history included a 1736 break-in at Baker's Tavern basement to steal barrels of Holland gin with the Geneva brand name. Prince and Caesar got caught, labeled professional thieves, and whipped. Caesar (Vaarck) was the slave of baker John Vaarck before the conspiracy and the Negro revolt that led to Caesar's hanging on May 11, 1741. His chain-bound remains were hung less than 10 yards away from the southeast corner of Cherry and Catherine Streets for all to see, from the East River anyway.
Bogardus Building	262 Washington Street	(40.715501, -74.012157)
NYC's first building with a full self-supporting cast-iron front was the Bogardus Building at 262 Washington Street by Warren Street. Built in 1848 by James Bogardus, it became the prototype of many of cast-iron buildings that sprang up in the 1850s in the Soho neighborhood. The building was home to one of the Laing stores before it was knocked down in 1971. Most of the cast-iron panels were stolen, but some were stored in the Landmarks Preservation Commission’s warehouse.
West Street Building	90 West Street	(40.709933, -74.014419)
The West Street Building, a 23-story, Gothic Revival-style building at 90 West Street (1905–07), originally had lavish plans for the lobbies that architect Cass Gilbert was told to simplify. The building was topped by the Garret Restaurant, which promoted itself as the highest restaurant in New York. The building still stand at the southwest corner of Ground Zero, and two people died in the elevators during 9-11.
Bus Schedule
Weekdays	Saturdays	Sundays
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