New York's history is buried under its skyline: a 1626 Dutch trading post, a slave burial ground paved over for two centuries, an immigration station that processed 12 million arrivals. Three days of walking the layers, from New Amsterdam to 9/11.
The 1719 Delancey house where Washington bid farewell to his officers on 4 December 1783. Two floors of Revolutionary-era rooms above a working tavern. Open Mon–Fri 12:00–17:00, Sat–Sun 11:00–17:00; museum entry via the Pearl Street door.
Rediscovered in 1991 during federal construction, this is the resting place of some 15,000 free and enslaved Africans buried between the 1690s and 1794. Seven grass mounds mark reinterred remains; the visitor centre sits inside 290 Broadway.
St. Paul's (1766) is Manhattan's oldest surviving church building — Washington prayed here after his 1789 inauguration, and it served as a 9/11 recovery shelter. Trinity's third building dates from 1846; Alexander Hamilton lies in its churchyard.
The 1842 Greek Revival Customs House stands where the original Federal Hall hosted the first US Congress and Washington's inauguration in 1789. The inaugural Bible and the balcony stone he stood on are inside; the rotunda is free to enter.
Twelve million immigrants passed through here between 1892 and 1954. The restored Registry Room, the medical inspection wards and the American Family Immigration History Center's passenger records fill three floors. Ferries leave Battery Park from 08:30.
Michael Arad's twin voids sit in the footprints of the original towers, with 2,983 names cut into bronze parapets — victims of 2001 and the 1993 garage bombing. White roses are placed on names on their birthdays.
A sealed-for-decades 1863 tenement reopened as apartments restored to specific families: the Gumpertz dressmakers of 1878, the Sicilian Baldizzis of the 1930s. Access is by timed guided tour only, roughly 60–90 minutes each.
Opened 1883 after fourteen years, twenty-seven deaths and John Roebling's own from tetanus. Emily Roebling supervised the final years after her husband was crippled by caisson disease. The Gothic granite towers were the tallest structures in the city.
Five French and Spanish medieval cloisters shipped stone by stone and reassembled above the Hudson in 1938 on Rockefeller money. The Unicorn Tapestries, Fuentidueña apse and a walled herb garden of 250 medieval species. Open 10:00–17:15, closed Wednesdays.
The 1891 McKim, Mead & White row houses on West 138th–139th housed Eubie Blake and W.C. Handy during the Harlem Renaissance. Abyssinian, founded 1808 by Ethiopian merchants refusing segregated seating, moved to its 138th Street Gothic home in 1923.
The Tredwell family lived in this 1832 Greek Revival row house for 98 years and changed almost nothing — original furniture, gasoliers, bell-pull servant system and the family's clothing survive intact. Open Thu–Mon 12:00–17:00.
Doyers Street's sharp bend earned the name Bloody Angle during the tong wars of the 1900s, with escape tunnels beneath. Columbus Park replaced the Five Points slum photographed by Jacob Riis; morning tai chi and mahjong still fill it daily.