Whenever I go to another city, I tend to enjoy the oldest parts of that city, especially cities like Boston and Philly that were central to the revolution and still have a colonial feel to them. However, the oldest part of New York, now called the Financial District, is just as busy as the rest of Lower Manhattan and Midtown with its Statue of Liberty tourists, Wall Street people, endless construction near the World Trade Center, and increasingly hectic nightlife. However, there are still a few places left in the Financial District that still seem very old and colonial.
The first place that retains a colonial feel is Fraunces Tavern. Fraunces Tavern is semi-famous because George Washington bid farewell to his troops there. It keeps its colonial feel in its design. Instead of leather, the booths are made out of fur. Instead of chairs at the bar and tables, they use old stools. Their attempts to make the place seem somewhat colonial get more interesting with their menu. Some of their ingredients seem more of a continental throwback than most ingredients, such as syrup from Vermont instead of a factory in God-knows-where, Cheddar Cheese instead of American Cheese, which didn’t exist at the time. The menu lists “dirty mustard” as an ingredient, which I think may be a reference to the sanitation standards of the time. I’ve had some of the weirder ingredients, and they are safe for consumption despite being strange. All this being said, if you still want to get a boring burger or steak, you can still get it at Fraunces Tavern. Also, a couple of notes on Fraunces Tavern: first, while this place is more expensive than most restaurants, it won’t break your wallet. Second, do not bring a fake ID to Fraunces. You will not be the person who shuts down a 254-year-old restaurant (visited by George Washington) over an underage drinking lawsuit.
A little further up Pearl St. and down Coenties Slip on the left, there’s a single short street, Stone St., that’s been almost completely preserved (aside from the fact that they have electricity). It’s a cobblestone road of course; there are no cars, and it was clearly designed to be a walkable area. It has a special type of charm to it, being a small, old street full of small, older buildings in the middle of the city filled with the tallest skyscrapers.
Unfortunately, neither of these have as much of a colonial feel as old areas of Philly and Boston. The bar in Fraunces Tavern is still crowded at night, and sometimes the Stone St. restaurants take over the street and fill it with tables. I guess it’s just one of the difficulties that come with the neighborhood being in the most lively and densely populated county in the country. Everything has to update with the times to some degree, even if it tries to keep its route. However, between the places listed above, the famous bull that was installed after the market crash of ’29, the Battery with the war memorial, the proximity to Ellis Island where many New Yorkers’ ancestors first landed in the States, and Trinity Church, the Financial District is the place to be if you want to feel in tune with New York’s (and America’s) history, or if you simply enjoy places with some historic charm to them.
