Castle Garden

THE BATTERY

The Battery, designated a park in 1693, is the oldest public space in continuous use in New York City. Within its shoreline landscape from 1855 to 1890, Castle Garden served as America’s first immigration processing center. The transformations of The Battery and the Castle tell the history of New York and, by extension, the growth and development of our nation.

On your next trip to New York, do come to The Battery to experience a day in your ancestor’s life. Retrace their century old footsteps as they disembarked onto the waterfront of The Battery and entered the Castle’s original walls to be registered and welcomed onto American soil. Enjoy the Castle’s surroundings, New York’s beautiful birthplace park, The Battery. Visit www.thebattery.org to plan your trip.

The Battery Conservancy led the effort to digitize Castle Garden’s immigration records and to create Castlegarden.org. The website was inaugurated on August 1, 2005 to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the opening of Castle Garden in 1855. It provides a searchable database, free for public use.

The Conservancy’s mission is to design, build, maintain and honor the history of The Battery, the 25-acre public park at the southern tip of Manhattan, in partnership with the City of New York’s Department of Parks and Recreation. Founded in 1994 to bring a new vision and focused resources to the park, the Conservancy has raised over $155M from private and public sources to reclaim this storied landscape from decades of neglect and dilapidation.

Keep Castlegarden.org free! Support today.

Funding for Castlegarden.org is provided by The Battery Conservancy and The May and Samuel Rudin Foundation.

The Battery Conservancy is joined by the following institutions and individuals that have provided support to create CastleGarden.org:

Dr. Ira Glazier, Center for Immigration Research

U.S. Census Bureau, Hagerstown, MD

Rockefeller Foundation

Fritz Thyssen Foundation, Cologne, Germany

Giovanni Agnelli Foundation, Turin, Italy

Deutsches Auswartiges Amt, Berlin

Ministero Degli Affari Esteri, Rome

Lucian N. Littauer Foundation, New York

Balch Institute, Philadelphia

Historical Society of Pennsylvania

Hapag Lloyd, Hanover

FAS Irish National Employment and Training Agency

University of Pennsylvania

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Temple University

University of Milan

Mr. Robert Silverman, Washington

Washington Jewish Genealogical Society

Dr. Alfred Kube, Historisches Museum, Bremerhaven

Mr. Sean Reidy, John F. Kennedy Trust, Ireland

Mary Robinson, Former President of Ireland

Jean Kennedy Smith, Former U.S.Ambassador to Ireland, Patron JFK Trust

Mr. John C. Haas, Phildelphia

Professor Ilaria Zilli, ISEMEM, Naples

Professor Luigi De Rosa*, Naples

Professor Robert Swierenga, Van Raalte Institute, Holland, Michigan

Professor Gunter Moltmann*, Hamburg University

Professor Charlotte Erickson, Cambridge University

Professor John MacDonald, University of London

Mr. Robert Warren, Census Bureau

Professor Werner Weidenfeld, Germany

Professor Fernando De Voto, Centro Estudios LatinoAmericanos, Buenos Aires

Professor Julianna Puskas, Budapest

Professor Mark Stolarik, University of Ottawa

Professor Dennis Shasha, New York University

Dr. John Tenhula, New York

Mr. Gordon Read, Liverpool