Original Park Theatre
The original Park Theatre was built in 1798, and stood on Park Row, between Ann and Beekman Streets, facing what was then City Hall Park and what is now the Post Office. It was 200 feet from Ann Street, and extended back to the alley which has ever since been called Theatre Alley. John Howard Payne, author of "Home, Sweet Home," appeared there for the first time on any stage, in 1809, as the "Young American Roscius." In 1842 a ball in honor of Charles Dickens was given there. Many noted actors played at this theatre, which was the most important in the city at that period. It was rebuilt in 1820 and burned in 1848.
First Brick Presbyterian Church
At the junction of Park Row and Nassau Street, where the Times Building is, the Brick Presbyterian Church was erected in 1768. There was a small burying-ground within the shadow of its walls, and green fields stretched from it in all directions. It was sold in 1854, and a new church was built at Fifth Avenue and Thirty-seventh Street.
Where Leisler Was Hanged
Within a few steps of where the statue of Benjamin Franklin is in Printing House Square, Jacob Leisler was hanged in his own garden in 1691, the city's first martyr to constitutional liberty. A wealthy merchant, after James III fled and William III ascended the throne, Leisler was called by the Committee of Safety to act as Governor. He assembled a Continental Congress, whose deliberations were cut short by the arrival of Col. Henry Sloughter as Governor. Enemies of Leisler decided on his death. The new Governor refused to sign the warrant, but being made drunk signed it unknowingly and Leisler was hanged and his body buried at the foot of the scaffold. A few years later, a royal proclamation wiped the taint of treason from Leisler's memory and his body was removed to a more honored resting-place.
Tammany Hall
The walls of the Sun building at Park Row and Frankfort Street, are those of the first permanent home of Tammany Hall. Besides the hall it contained the second leading hotel in the city, where board was $7 a week. Tammany Hall, organized in 1789 by William Mooney, an upholsterer, occupied quarters in Borden's tavern in lower Broadway. In 1798 it removed to Martling's tavern, at the southeast corner of Nassau and Spruce, until its permanent home was erected in 1811.
A Liberty Pole
There is a tablet on the wall of the south corridor of the post-office building, which bears the inscription: