Whitehall Street is a street in the New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 borough

Borough (New York City)

New York City, one of the largest cities in the world, is composed of five boroughs. Each borough now has the same boundaries as the county it is in. County governments were dissolved when the city consolidated in 1898, along with all city, town, and village governments within each county...

 of Manhattan

Manhattan

Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...

, about four blocks long. It extends from the southern end of Broadway

Broadway (New York City)

Broadway is a prominent avenue in New York City, United States, which runs through the full length of the borough of Manhattan and continues northward through the Bronx borough before terminating in Westchester County, New York. It is the oldest north–south main thoroughfare in the city, dating to...

 (the street name changes at Stone Street) to the southern end of FDR Drive

Franklin D. Roosevelt East River Drive

The Franklin D. Roosevelt East River Drive is a freeway-standard parkway on the east side of the New York City borough of Manhattan...

, adjacent to the Staten Island Ferry

Staten Island Ferry

The Staten Island Ferry is a passenger ferry service operated by the New York City Department of Transportation that runs between the boroughs of Manhattan and Staten Island.-Overview:...

 terminal, on landfill beyond Stuyvesant's 17th-century house-site. There is also the Whitehall Street – South Ferry station ( trains) of the New York City Subway

New York City Subway

The New York City Subway is a rapid transit system owned by the City of New York and leased to the New York City Transit Authority, a subsidiary agency of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and also known as MTA New York City Transit...

, named after the street; entrances are located at the northern and southern ends of the street (Stone Street and the Staten Island South Ferry terminal). The street is adjacent to the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House

Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House

The Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House is a building in New York City, built 1902–1907 by the federal government to house the duty collection operations for the port of New York. It is located near the southern tip of Manhattan, next to Battery Park, at 1 Bowling Green...

.

Near the foot of the street is the site of the Governor's house built by Peter Stuyvesant

Peter Stuyvesant

Peter Stuyvesant , served as the last Dutch Director-General of the colony of New Netherland from 1647 until it was ceded provisionally to the English in 1664, after which it was renamed New York...

; when the British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 took over New Amsterdam

New Amsterdam

New Amsterdam was a 17th-century Dutch colonial settlement that served as the capital of New Netherland. It later became New York City....

 from the Dutch

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

, they christened the street and the building "Whitehall" for England's seat of government, Whitehall, London

Whitehall

Whitehall is a road in Westminster, in London, England. It is the main artery running north from Parliament Square, towards Charing Cross at the southern end of Trafalgar Square...

. On the Castello map (1660, illustration) Whitehall, with its white roof, stands on a jutting piece of land at Manhattan's tip, facing along the waterfront strand that extends along the East River

East River

The East River is a tidal strait in New York City. It connects Upper New York Bay on its south end to Long Island Sound on its north end. It separates Long Island from the island of Manhattan and the Bronx on the North American mainland...

. The only extensive pleasure gardens in seventeenth-century Nieuw Amsterdam/New York are seen to extend behind it, laid out in a patterned parterre

Parterre

A parterre is a formal garden construction on a level surface consisting of planting beds, edged in stone or tightly clipped hedging, and gravel paths arranged to form a pleasing, usually symmetrical pattern. Parterres need not have any flowers at all...

 of four squares. Other grounds in the center of blocks behind houses are commons

Common land

Common land is land owned collectively or by one person, but over which other people have certain traditional rights, such as to allow their livestock to graze upon it, to collect firewood, or to cut turf for fuel...

 and market gardens

Market gardening

A market garden is the relatively small-scale production of fruits, vegetables and flowers as cash crops, frequently sold directly to consumers and restaurants. It is distinguishable from other types of farming by the diversity of crops grown on a small area of land, typically, from under one acre ...

. The mansion is long since gone, and now the name survives only as the short north-south Whitehall Street.

The Topps

Topps

The Topps Company, Inc., manufactures chewing gum, candy and collectibles. Based in New York, New York, Topps is best known as a leading producer of baseball cards, football cards, basketball cards, hockey cards and other sports and non-sports themed trading cards.-Company history:Topps itself was...

 Corporation has an office building. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority

Metropolitan Transportation Authority (New York)

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority of the State of New York is a public benefit corporation responsible for public transportation in the U.S...

 has renovated the building, which is currently given the address 2 Broadway, to use as a new headquarters. There are also several other office buildings and low-density shops.

The street is one-way southbound for several blocks near Bowling Green until Pearl Street, and one-way northbound up from the FDR Drive near the Staten Island Ferry, also terminating at Pearl Street. The southernmost block (adjacent to the ferry terminal), provides access from FDR Drive to the Battery area.
There is an active passenger ferry

Ferry

A ferry is a form of transportation, usually a boat, but sometimes a ship, used to carry primarily passengers, and sometimes vehicles and cargo as well, across a body of water. Most ferries operate on regular, frequent, return services...

 terminal at the southern tip of Manhattan called Whitehall Terminal; however, its facilities in use have shifted over the decade, as have the destinations served. Furthermore, the terminal once served cars. The original Whitehall Terminal served Brooklyn

Brooklyn

Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...

, Governors Island

Governors Island

Governors Island is a island in Upper New York Bay, approximately one-half mile from the southern tip of Manhattan Island and separated from Brooklyn by Buttermilk Channel. It is legally part of the borough of Manhattan in New York City...

, Staten Island

Staten Island

Staten Island is a borough of New York City, New York, United States, located in the southwest part of the city. Staten Island is separated from New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull, and from the rest of New York by New York Bay...

, and Weehawken

Weehawken, New Jersey

Weehawken is a township in Hudson County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the township population was 12,554.-Geography:Weehawken is part of the New York metropolitan area...

, and it was originally served mainly by the elevated trains. However, since the subways have replaced the els, cars now travel through bridges and tunnels such as the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel

Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel

Interstate 478s entire length consists of the Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel and its approaches. Its south end is at Interstate 278, and its north end is at NY 9A ....

, and new terminal facilities were built at Whitehall to serve the Staten Island Ferry

Staten Island Ferry

The Staten Island Ferry is a passenger ferry service operated by the New York City Department of Transportation that runs between the boroughs of Manhattan and Staten Island.-Overview:...

, the old Whitehall terminal building was allowed to decay until its recent renovation, as the "Battery Maritime Building", housing the ferry to Governors Island, which is open to the public from April through October.

For many years, a military induction center was located at 39 Whitehall Street before being bombed by Sam Melville

Sam Melville

Samuel Joseph Melville , was the principal conspirator and bomb setter in the 1969 bombings of eight government and commercial office buildings in New York City. Melville cited his opposition to the Vietnam War and U.S. imperialism as the motivation for the bombings...

 in 1969 and rendered unusable. Nearly three million Americans were inducted at the Army building which existed at the site from 1884 to the end of the Vietnam War. This center was made famous in Arlo Guthrie

Arlo Guthrie

Arlo Davy Guthrie is an American folk singer. Like his father, Woody Guthrie, Arlo often sings songs of protest against social injustice...

's "Alice's Restaurant

Alice's Restaurant

"Alice's Restaurant Massacree" is a musical monologue by singer-songwriter Arlo Guthrie released on his 1967 album Alice's Restaurant. The song is one of Guthrie's most prominent works, based on a true incident in his life that began on Thanksgiving Day 1965, and which inspired a 1969 movie of the...

."