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BATTERY PARK forms the southern termination of Manhattan Island. It is reached by all the elevated roads and by the Broadway, Sixth avenue, Eighth avenue and Belt lines, and by the Subway.
The distinguishing feature of the Battery Park is the sea wall along the water front, which affords an admirable view of New York Harbor. Here the North (or Hudson) and East rivers join their currents, and the outlook is south over the Upper Bay. On the right across the North River is Jersey City, with the New Jersey shore stretching away to where the Standard Oil refineries send up their perpetual columns of smoke. In the middle distance, five miles away, rise the wooded slopes of Staten Island. Near at hand, on the left, is Governor's Island, and on the extreme left, across the East River, is Brooklyn with its ware-houses and church steeples. The Narrows, seven miles distant, are in line with Governor's Island, which shuts off the view of them.
From the Battery Park, The Statue of Liberty, on Liberty Island, is a conspicuous object. To the right of it on Ellis Island are the large buildings of the Immigration Depot. The fort on the point of Governor's Island is Castle Williams. If our visit is so timed, we may see the flash of its sunset gun, followed by the kindling of Liberty's torch and the blink of the revolving light on Robbins Reef, off Staten Island. But at whatever hour we stand here, the scene is one of interest. Nowhere else in New York may we have such a diversified and animated marine picture. There are gigantic European steamships moving majestically to their piers, coastwise steamers and Sound boats, excursion boats—if it be summer—with picnic barges and floating hospitals; ferryboats, lighters, freight car floats, long tows of canal boats bound up the Hudson, grotesque floating derricks and grain elevators, noisy tugs with tows and noisier ones without, revenue cutters, smart steam yachts and perhaps a war vessel, with sailing craft and naphtha launches—all these coming and going and forming a marine medley, with kaleidoscopic effects, ever full of motion, forever changing, and a scene to stir the imagination. Here we are looking upon one of-the most magnificent harbors in the world, whose sunsets challenge the artist's brush, and whose activities are significant of New York's commercial supremacy of the Western Hemisphere.
Telling the same story, beyond the Battery Park rise the tower of the Produce Exchange and the lofty office buildings, which are the beginning of that succession of skyscrapers for which New York is famous. Near by on State street are seen the Chesebrough and Battery Park buildings; where Broadway begins is the Washington, with the Bowling Green overtopping it, and beyond is the Empire; on the right is the Standard Oil.
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