The customhouse, where the government collects duties on goods brought into the port of New York from other lands, was built at the extreme southern end of the island, where Fort Amsterdam used to stand. The United States Sub-Treasury, in Wall Street, stands on the site of Federal Hall, where Washington was inaugurated. Here are stored large quantities of gold, silver, and paper money belonging to the government. In and about City Hall Park are the post office, the courthouse, and the Hall of Records. The new public library, on Fifth Avenue between Fortieth and Forty-second streets, is the largest library building in the world.
The city's parks are many. Central Park, in the center of Manhattan, ranks among the world's finest pleasure grounds. It is two miles and a half long and one-half mile wide, and has large stretches of woodland, beautiful lawns, gleaming lakes, and sparkling fountains. Here, too, are the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Cleopatra's Needle—an obelisk thousands of years old, presented to the city by a ruler of Egypt. And here are reservoirs which hold the water brought by aqueducts from the Croton River, about forty miles north of the city. This river was for many years the sole source of Manhattan's water supply. In 1905, however, the city began work on an immense aqueduct which is to bring all the drinking-water for all five boroughs from reservoirs in the Catskill Mountain region.
NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART
MANHATTAN ISLAND AND THE CITY PARKS
