4. There are Ruins of a 19th-Century Irish Cottage
Battery Park houses a number of innovative memorials to those who lost their lives in events including the Irish Potato Famine, 9/11, and Hurricane Maria. The Irish Hunger Memorial on Vesey Street and North End Avenue was created to raise awareness of a catastrophic event that greatly increased Irish immigration to the United States in the 1840s and 1850s. Between 1845 and 1852, over a million Irish people starved to death due to a potato blight, leading over 900,000 to relocate to New York.
Designed by artist Brian Tolle and landscape architect Gail Wittwer-Laird, the memorial stretches over half an acre. To create a pastoral landscape, Tolle and Wittwer-Laird used over 60 native plants from Ireland and stones from each one of the island’s 32 counties. There are also remnants of a 19th-century cottage that were transported from the Emerald Isle to Battery Park City. The cottage was donated by the Slacks of Attymass in County Mayo.