Broadway comes to a gentle end at Bowling Green Park , originally the city's meat market, but in 1733 turned into an oval of turf used for the game by colonial Brits on a lease of "one peppercorn per year." In 1626, the green had been the location of one of Manhattan's more memorable business deals, when Peter Minuit, first director general of the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, bought the whole island from the Indians for a bucket of trade goods worth sixty guilders (about $24). The other side of the story (and the part you never hear) was that these particular Indians didn't actually own the island.
The green sees plenty of office folk picnicking in the shadow of Cass Gilbert's US Customs House , a heroic monument to the Port of New York and home of the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian , 1 Bowling Green (daily 10am-5pm; free; tel 212/514-3700, www.si.edu/nmai ). This excellent collection of artifacts from almost every tribe native to the Americas was largely assembled by one man, George Gustav Heye (1874-1957), who traveled throughout the Americas picking up such works for over fifty years. Built in 1907, the Customs House itself was intended to pay homage to the booming maritime market. The four statues were sculpted by Daniel Chester French, who also created the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. As if French foresaw the House's current use, the sculptor blatantly comments on the mistreatment of Indians in his statues.
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