History
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From early Dutch times, the tip of Manhattan was fortified with gun batteries that gave the Battery its name, first at seventeenth-century Fort Amsterdam on the Custom House site and then at Castle Clinton. Fort Amsterdam disappeared long ago, but its rubble survives in layers of landfill that helped create twenty-three acres of Battery Park and filled in the water that once separated Castle Clinton from the mainland. Completed in 1811 as part of New York City's harbor defense, Castle Clinton is among the oldest and most visited public buildings in Downtown. In 1824 it was transformed into Castle Garden, hosting balloonists, fireworks, and Italian opera companies, and became the city's leading place of entertainment and a favored site for grand entrances by visiting celebrities. From 1855 until 1890, Castle Garden served as America's first official landing depot for new immigrants, widely known in Europe. From 1896 to 1941, Castle Garden housed the New York Aquarium, then the world's largest, with one hundred wall tanks and seven large pools containing eight thousand creatures, many living in salt water pumped in from New York Bay. Today, Castle Clinton is a National Monument operated by the National Park Service.
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