Sunset at Battery Park, looking out to NJ over the Hudson River:
Battery Park is a 25-acre public park located at the southern tip of Manhattan Island in New York City facing New York Harbor. The park and surrounding area is named for the artillery batteries that were positioned there in the city’s early years to protect the settlement behind them.
The southern shoreline of Manhattan Island had been known as “The Battery” since the 17th century when the area was part of the Dutch Settlement of New Amsterdam. At the time, an artillery battery there served to protect the seaward approaches to the town. The Battery continued its function during the colonial era, and was the center of Evacuation Day celebrations commemorating the departure of the last British troops in the United States after the American Revolutionary War. Just prior to the War of 1812, the West Battery, later renamed Castle Clinton, was erected on a small artificial offshore island nearby, to replace the earlier batteries in the area; later, when the Battery’s landmass was created, it encircled and incorporated the island.
The relatively modern Battery was mostly created by landfill starting from 1855, resulting in a landscaped open space at the foot of the heavily developed mainland of downtown. Skyscrapers now occupy most of the original land, stopping abruptly where the park begins. To the northwest of the park lies Battery Park City, a planned community built on landfill in the 1970’s and ’80s’, which includes Robert F. Wagner Park and the Battery Park City Promenade. Battery Park City was named after the park. Together with Hudson River Park, a system of green spaces, bike ways, and promenades now extend up the Hudson River shoreline.