Ellis Island and Lady Liberty are reached by ferry from Battery Park: this strip of green fringing the Hudson River was named after the line of cannons once set here to protect the city. You can still visit Castle Clinton. When it was built in 1807 it stood about 109 yards offshore but years of landfill have since connected it to the Financial District, known as Wall Street. The wall in question was by the Dutch colonists of New Amsterdam to mark the boundary between Indian territory and their own.

Wall Street may now by synonymous with high finance but it is also custodian of some of New York