In-depth Article on the City Hall Park Archaeological Excavation
This is a very good, in-depth (sorry!) article on the City Hall Park Excavation. And no, I’m not biased just because my father co-wrote it.
The City Hall Park Project
February 12, 2007
by H. Arthur Bankoff and Alyssa Loorya
The eighteenth century was crucial to the development of New York. At its beginning, New York was a small British trading colony of 12,309 people. By its end, the city’s population had grown to 79,216 people and it was the capital of the United States. Few places in this country illustrate such an explosion of civic growth as dramatically as City Hall Park. On a broader scale, City Hall Park is one of our only witnesses not only to the turmoil of the Revolutionary War and the occupation of New York, but also to the development of public institutions based on an emerging philosophy of civic responsibility.
The City Hall Park archaeological project recovered approximately 250,000 archaeological remains that can reveal information about the civic transformation of the eighteenth century. Archaeology uncovered portions of colonial and Revolutionary War barracks where British officers and soldiers were housed both before and during the British occupation of New York; the Almshouse, which housed the ill and impoverished; the Bridewell, a prison; and the New Gaol, another penal institution.
The site provides unparalleled opportunities to combine a rich body of historic documents with archaeological finds to illuminate all facets of public life in New York during these tumultuous times.
For the full article and many features: http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/cityhallpark/index.html