Castle Clinton

Throughout my tour, I have been avoiding most of the obvious tourist magnets and bigger monuments (with a few exceptions of course) but I always found this one interesting.

Castle Clinton, later renamed Castle Garden is that old round building down near the battery that is now unfortunately used now only as a big ticket window for the Ellis island ferry. It was built in preparation of the war of 1812 as a NY city lower Hudson guard. At that time the Castle was surrounded by water and the area resembled nothing of the modern day park. Over the years, the southern tip of Manhattan was enlarged by landfill and eventually engulfed the building.

It was used starting in the 1820 as a cultural and performance center, opera house, promenade, used by PT Barnum and even as a beer garden. During this period the structure had added floors and was roofed over. It was used mostly in this hodgepodge manner until it was transformed into an immigrant process center. Over 8.5 million immigrants went through the castle before the center on Ellis island was created soon after the civil war.

Its most famous use was that of the Aquarium starting in 1896. As is the unfortunate fate of many of New York's landmarks, the aquarium was shut down and the structure almost entirely destroyed by a behemoth bridge plan proposed by Robert Moses. The aquarium was moved to Coney Island and the original castle saved and landmarked. Its not very exciting to see now, since its used as a f#@king ticket booth...but i do find its history fun and worthy of note.