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New York: Seaport District
Stroll the cobblestones of this waterfront area, where history coexists with modern shopping and dining spots
1 TITANIC MEMORIAL
LIGHTHOUSE The Seaport District at the southeastern tip of Manhattan is one of New York’s most historic districts, and yet is overlooked by most tourist itineraries, and overshadowed (literally) by some of its modern developments. Located between Brooklyn Bridge to the northeast and Maiden Lane to the southeast, it is a series of streets running parallel to the water’s edge – Front Street, Water Street and South Street. Reaching it is easy. Use Fulton Street station and walk down the road of the same name until you see the Titanic Memorial Lighthouse, which sat on top of the 12-storey Seamen’s Church Institute on South Street until its demolition in the late 1960s. From this point, you can spot buildings from the early
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19th century and appreciate a history dating back to the Dutch West India Company of 1625. Walk to the right – the buildings here (numbered 2-18 Fulton Street) are called the Schermerhorn Row Block, designed in the Federal style of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
2 SOUTH STREET
SEAPORT MUSEUM This museum on Schermerhorn Row is where you can learn more about the district, especially if you pre-book a walking tour. This will explain how the marshy eastern shoreline – which is still vulnerable to flooding, as was shown in 2012 with Hurricane Sandy – was once a series of coves that gradually had their banks strengthened to create wharves and piers known as “Slips”, areas where boats arrived from the East
River to load and unload. The slips were filled in but are recognisable by the width of the streets – check out nearby Peck Slip, which is wider than neighbouring roads. It’s a fascinating exercise strolling around the area and spotting them – Coenties Slip (mentioned in chapter one of Moby Dick), Old Slip, Catherine Slip, Market Slip and Burling Slip. If you’re interested in the conservation of the area, see Save Our Seaport (
saveourseaport.org). Museum open 11am-5pm Wed-Sun; entry US$20.
southstreetseaportmuseum.org
3 SHOPPING
The area has certainly gone upmarket since the late New Yorker writer Joseph Mitchell described its fascinating but down-at-heel cafés and bars and, most famously, the oystermen of Fulton Fish Market
bus ine s s tr a v el ler .c om
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