Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House / National Museum of the American Indian

Before the income tax was invented, duties levied on imported goods financed almost the entire cost of America’s federal government, and as much as 80 percent of that duty came through the Port of New York, making the New York Custom House a major national financial power. That importance enabled Customs to build the sumptuous Beaux-Arts masterpiece at the foot of Broadway, Cass Gilbert’s extraordinary monument, filled with symbols of international trade from Mercury, god of commerce, to Daniel Chester French’s huge allegorical statues of Asia, America, Europe, and Africa. The Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House now houses the George Gustav Heye Center of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, bringing full circle the history of a site that sits on the original Algonquin trading ground at the foot of the Wiechquaekeck Trail, a centuries-old trade route whose original path evolved into today’s Broadway, and returning a Native American presence to the site.

New York, New York · United States