"Wow" History of Lower Manhattan: Understanding New York City's Dutch Origins

Take this in-app audio tour to reveal the glorious history of the city, founded by the Dutch colonists in 1625 as New Amsterdam, to become the cultural capital of America, and the whole world!

With its rustic windmill, New York once took just a few blocks of today's city, from Battery Park to Wall Street, and left a legacy of street patterns and place names that is insightful to embrace.

You will start the tour at the Friendship Monument to learn the New Netherland colony foundation plot in detail. Across the road, you will see the National Museum of the American Indian, a place where Fort Amsterdam was located to defend the colony.

Then, you will promenade a riverfront of the time, Pearl Street, as a Dutch settler would. Here you will see the Fraunces Tavern, the oldest building in Lower Manhattan, built in 1719.

From there, you will come to the first paved street in the city, the historic Stone Street, famous for its breweries. Around the corner, you will spot the flamboyant step-gabled houses of South William Street to reimagine traditional Dutch architecture.

You will be amazed by what the busy Wall Street of today once was: a humble path along the defensive wooden fence. In its line, you will be allured with the statuesque landmark, Trinity Church, once the tallest building in the city.

To round up, you will walk the main road of the colony, today's Broadway, used by the Native Americans long before the Dutch arrived and chartered it.