4. There Was a Native American Trail Bounding the Park

City Hall Park’s western boundary is now Broadway, but it was originally a Native American trail called the “Wickquasgeck” (translates to “birch-bark country” in Algonquian.) Before the city was covered in concrete and steel, the pathway cut through the natural swamp lands of Manhattan, starting from present-day Lower Broadway. Dutch explorer David de Vries, mentions “the Wickquasgeck Road over which the Indians passed daily” in his journal, which dates back to the year 1642. This trail would become modern-day Broadway.