The Lives of Castle Clinton:

Authorized in 1790 with stone and soil taken from Fort George and the Grand Battery to fill the pier line along the Battery, the island site later became the South-West Battery, one of several new harbor forts begun in 1808 whose heavy armament helped discourage a British attack on New York City during the War of 1812. Renamed Castle Clinton in honor of Mayor DeWitt Clinton, it became headquarters of the Third Military District before its military importance declined and its role as a harbor destination grew. Leased by the City of New York in 1824 as a public entertainment venue called Castle Garden, it welcomed the Marquis de Lafayette at the start of his American tour and later hosted visits by Andrew Jackson, James Polk, and Millard Fillmore, along with attractions including a balloon ascension, F.B. Morse’s telegraph demonstration, and Jenny Lind’s American debut. In 1855, leased by the State of New York as the first immigrant landing depot in the United States, it became a place where New York provided immigrants with health care, employment, and transportation as arrivals surged after political unrest in Europe in the 1840s and the famine in Ireland; more than eight million people entered through Castle Garden before it closed in 1890, after which the federal government took over immigration control and built a larger receiving facility on Ellis Island. Altered again and reopened in 1896 as the New York City Aquarium, it drew millions of visitors until closing in 1941 for construction of the Brooklyn-Battery subway tunnel. Demolition of the aquarium revealed the original walls of Castle Garden, and preservationists helped secure designation of Castle Clinton as a National Monument following World War II, while later subway excavation also brought Battery walls to light and helped win them a place on the National Register of Historic Places.

New York, New York · United States