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Hi there, welcome to the Bowry Boys. This is Greg Young.

Well, it is election season in New York City.

This past week, in fact, the city held primaries to select candidates for the city council

for new borough presidents. And of course, we also went to the polls to select democratic and Republican candidates for mayor.

So to honor our civic responsibilities, we've re-edited and remastered our 2009 episode on the history of New York City Hall and City Hall Park.

The former City Commons area, that is just as interesting, is the building which serves as the seat of local government.

This is actually the story of three city halls, one from the era of Dutch New Amsterdam, another from the colonial period, which was later transformed into a federal center of the new fledgling United States of America,

and the current New York City Hall, which was completed and first used in the summer of 1811, 210 years ago this year, although it wasn't quite finished until the following year, 1812.

Plus, stay tuned to the very end of this episode, because I'm going to offer you all your very own, choose your own adventure game into New York City history.

So let's learn some about City Hall and City Hall Park.

Well, Tom, why don't you get us started with where in Manhattan City Hall is?

We, of course, know that it's the center of New York City government, where in the map, where in the world of Manhattan is it?

City Hall itself is located inside City Hall Park, which is bordered by Broadway, Park Row and Center Street, and Chambers Street to the north.

It's a rather triangular section of land.

Now, the area is home around it to many government-related buildings, local government buildings, state, and federal buildings just abound.

There's actually so many buildings surrounding this that we have actually already talked about in prior podcasts.

For instance, you have the Brooklyn Bridge to its east, you have the Woolworth building to its west.

Right. And as we've discussed, Park Row was also home to many newspapers in the period that we'll be talking about. And behind much of the Civic Center is the old location of Collect Pond, and of course, that area became the five points slung.

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