In 1733, New York residents petitioned the crown for the creation of a public park at the foot of Broadway.  Before then, it had been public land used for grazing, but now residents wanted it set aside for lawn bowling – the fashionable sport in England in those days. Thus it became known as the Bowling Green — by some accounts the first public park in America.

When the French & Indian War between Britain and France ended, the crown sought to recoup some of its costs by taxing the colonists. But the colonists didn’t want to pay taxes.  Americans in the 18^th century were the lowest-taxed people on earth, and they liked it that way.  But parliament had other ideas, and passed three odious taxes: the stamp act, the tea act, and the sugar act, all of which fell hard on colonial wallets.

In New York, the Sons of Liberty came together to assert their now-famous claim—no taxation without representation—and to show their mettle they uprooted a wooden picket fence that surrounded Bowling Green and torched it in a big bonfire. 

The English Parliament was not pleased, and in 1770 it responded by installing a 4000lbs statue of George III in the middle of the green, which really pissed off the lawn-bowlers.  It was a beautiful equestrian statue modeled after the famous statue of Marcus Aurelius in Rome (AD 175).  It inspired the colonists to a new form of artistic expression, and thus began a favorite New York pastime: graffiti.  To protect the statue, in 1770, the British replaced the wooden fence with the one we have now – making it one of the oldest artifacts in Manhattan.

On April 18^th, 1775, war begins.  The redcoats fire on the militia at Concord and Lexington, and live to regret it all the way back to Boston.  Down here, the locals are not sure what to think.  War’s bad for business and Fort Amsterdam—renamed Fort George—was no match for the British navy.

But then on July 9^th, 1776, George Washington read the Declaration of Independence aloud in City Hall Park, and the Sons of Liberty got so fired up that they raced down here, and they ripped down the statue.  Then they broke it up and sent the pieces to a munitions factory in Connecticut, where, in the words of one soldier, “it is hoped that the Emanations of the Leaden George III will make as deep impressions in the Bodies of some of his red coated subjects.”  The statue yielded over 42,000 bullets and who knows how many dead redcoats.

Experience all the hidden history in our New York walking tours.  We offer a unique NY tour experience, told with audio narration, hundreds of pictures, video clips, gps-enabled map, trivia quizzes, local recommendations, and much more.  Walk New York with Racontrs in your hand and take a walk through history.