#9 City Hall Park/ The Commons / Liberty Pole

 

* picture of City Hall Park, Nathan Hale, and liberty Pole

The Commons,City Hall Park, and Liberty Pole

By: Ho Jun Lee & Ryan Galgano.

The Commons

• The first Almshouse was built in 1735. 

• During the 1730s and 1740s, the military began using the Commons as a parade ground and erected a palisade along its northern boundary in 1745.

• City continued expanding northward, the Commons became less isolated.

• The Commons continued to be used as a public gathering space, either for celebration or demonstration.

• Continental Army First Heard Declaration Of Independence Here
• George Washington read it in July 1776

• Construction began on City Hall in 1803 and the Tweed Courthouse in 1860. Both structures remain across from in City Hall Park today.

City Hall Park

• From 1653 to 1699 this area was known as the Commons and served as a communal pasture ground for livestock. 

• After President Lincoln was assassinated, his funeral procession for New York residents originated at City Hall.

• In 1765 New Yorkers protested the Stamp Act at the site, and a year later the first “Liberty Pole,”
• Now there’s Liberty Flag Pole marker 
• Near Broadway, under a tree, west side of City Hall Building

• On Aug. 11, 1766, the first blood of the fight for American liberty was spilled on the New York Common
• One of first Parks in downtown NYC

• Some of the most notorious British prisons were in what is now City Hall Park. Park made for honor Nathan Hale
• He born in Conventry, Connecticut, on June 6, 1755
• After graduating from Yale University at the age of 18, Hale became a schoolteacher.
• Attended school with fellow patriot spy Benjamin Tallmadge
• His espionage mission
• When war began to brew in the American colonies, he joined a Connecticut regiment and served in the siege of Boston
• He volunteered to enter New York as a spy 
• He was captured by the British in NYC and hanged for espionage on September 22, 1776, in New York City

• In 1999 a $34.6 million project fully restored the park, adding a central walkway and gardens and replacing pavement with grass and trees.

• ex) The Bridewell, named for a London jail, was the most deadly. It had no windows, only bars. The winter winds took the lives of hundreds of ill-fed patriots.

Liberty Pole

• The first liberty pole was put up on on May 21, 1766, in City Hall park in celebration of the repeal of the Stamp Act

• liberty poles were put up in town squares before and during the American Revolution (Newport, RI, Concord MA, Savannah, GA, New York City, NY, Caughnawaga, NY). 

• From 1766 to 1770, British soldiers cut down four of the five Liberty Poles erected there by the Sons of Liberty. 

• The liberty poles were put up as a symbol of American rebellion against the British king and parliament 

• A liberty pole is a tall wooden pole, often used as a type of flagstaff, planted in the ground, surmounted by a Phrygian cap.

• An often violent struggle over Liberty Poles put up by the Sons of Liberty in New York City ( Battle of Golden Hill; destroyed by British authorities (replaced by the Sons with new poles)

• The “Battle of Golden Hill” was a skirmish between the Sons of Liberty and the British soldiers 

• The event was an early cause leading to the Revolution 

• They raged for 10 years

• From the repeal of the Stamp Act in 1766 until the occupation of the city by British troops after the Battle of Long Island in 1776.

• The liberty pole in New York City was crowned with a gilt vane bearing the single word, "Liberty".