Room 128 of 136 · CASTLE CLINTON / THE BATTERY · 1855

Castle Clinton: Arrivals in the round

An open sandstone fort with deep embrasures and a circular portrait promenade, looking outward to the harbor.

ENTER THIS ROOM✦ SPIN A ROOMTHE ATLAS

Castle Clinton: Arrivals in the round

Castle Clinton National Monument, the history

Castle Clinton began as the Southwest Battery, built between 1808 and 1811 on rocks off the tip of Manhattan with 28 cannons. Renamed for DeWitt Clinton in 1817, it became the Castle Garden entertainment hall, where Jenny Lind made her American debut in 1850. From August 3, 1855 to April 18, 1890 it served as the nation's first immigrant landing depot, and more than 8 million people entered through it. It housed the New York Aquarium from 1896 to 1941 and reopened as a national monument in 1975.

Source · National Park Service ↗

What the room is built from

Low circular sandstone battery; open courtyard; thick embrasures; entrance tunnel. Present-day open-sky form. Mood: harbor morning. Everything is procedural geometry with painted surfaces; nothing is a scan or a photograph. The room is an interpretation, and it hangs the New Yorkers the census recorded at this place first.

← City Hall: The public portrait ALL 136 PLACES Greenacre: The waterfall salon →