10. The Common/City Hall Park

Angelica, Eliza and Peggy work it downtown in the Common in “The Schuyler Sisters,” and Alexander Hamilton takes on a pro- British speaker there in “Farmer Refuted.”

The park’s western boundary was a Native American trail that later became Broadway. In 1765, New Yorkers protested the Stamp Act at the site, and a year later the first “Liberty Pole,” a mast topped by a vane with the word “liberty,” was built at the site (a replica stands between City Hall and Broadway, near its original location).

The Common was the site of Alexander Hamilton’s first major public speech, at a meeting of the Sons of Liberty on July 6, 1774, where he spoke in support of the Boston Tea Party and a boycott of British goods. When Hamilton (with others) stole cannons from Ft. George in The Battery on August 23, 1775, they brought the cannons to the Common. On July 9, 1776, George Washington read the Declaration of Independence to a crowd at the Common.

See the new Hamilton film on Disney+. Get the book Where Was the Room Where It Happened? The Unofficial Hamilton: An American Musical Location Guide. Next, see the dueling pistols from Hamilton and Burr (which are located in a J.P. Morgan Chase building in Manhattan!) and read about the Secrets of City Hall.