The Path to Liberty

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SEMIQUINTESSENTIALS

America’s Anniversary: Thinking Nationally, Acting Locally

Path to Liberty

Relive the Drama of 250 Years Ago at the Fraunces Tavern Museum

Take away the orange cones out front, the skyscrapers in the background, and electric lights, and you can almost see Fraunces Tavern in 1776.

Imagine the cobblestoned corner of Pearl and Broad Streets in the summer of 1776, where important visitors mingle with the locals at a busy tavern. Men known as the Sons of Liberty drop in for refreshment and libation. General George Washington dines with his officers. Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Paul Revere, and others well known to Americans 250 years later meet to make their revolutionary plans.

Rebellion against England is heating up, and Fraunces Tavern is at the center of it.

Today, Fraunces Tavern, owned by the Sons of the Revolution in the State of New York, is the oldest surviving building in Manhattan. Still a popular watering hole at ground level, the building has hosted the Fraunces Tavern Museum upstairs since 1907. In conjunction with this year’s 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the museum is offering an exceptional lineup of exhibitions, lectures, and programs.

Tomorrow, Friday, June 12, the Fraunces Tavern Museum will observe Flag Day (which technically falls on Sunday), starting with a parade that winds through Lower Manhattan and concludes at 54 Pearl Street. There, the museum will throw open its doors with $1 admission.

Flag Day will be celebrated in style tomorrow at the Fraunces Tavern Museum (54 Pearl Street), where a Friday open house offers admission for $1.

One of New York’s longest-running parades, the Flag Day Parade will begin at City Hall Park at noon with marching bands and VIPs, and proceed down Broadway, gathering members of the public as it winds south and concludes at a grandstand in front of Fraunces Tavern around 12:30pm. Beneath a four-story American flag, student winners of the annual Flag Day student essay and art contest will be honored.

At the museum, “Path to Liberty: The Emergence of a Nation” is a chronological, multi-year, multi-installment, multi-gallery special exhibition commemorating the United States Semiquincentennial, and featuring documents, artifacts, and works of art that tell the history of the American Revolution from 1775 to 1783, with a focus on what occurred in New York and the surrounding areas.

“This is our core semiquincentennial exhibit,” says Scott Dwyer, director of the Fraunces Tavern Museum and the Sons of the Revolution in the State of New York. “It will rotate content throughout the year, but this installment is focused on the battles of New York at the beginning of the Revolution, and how the struggle for independence nearly ended before it began.”

This was a reference to a series of engagements—in Brooklyn, Kip’s Bay, Harlem, White Plains, and Washington Heights—fought between August and November of 1776, when George Washington managed to recover from multiple defeats and continue the struggle.

“The British thought this would lead to a very quick victory and were not prepared for a long war,” Mr. Dwyer says. “People at the time, and even today, discounted the Continental Army. But in addition to the home court advantage, they knew how to fight and where to do it. The context and the terrain were utterly foreign to the British. And the Americans had more skin in the game, more reason to fight than the British. This showed in their strength and resolve and courage.”

He cites the intrigue engaged in by Samuel Fraunces, who owned the tavern and hosted meetings of the Sons of Liberty, but fled when the British captured New York in 1776. “The British found him in New Jersey, brought him back, and made him work as an indentured servant in his own restaurant,” Mr. Dwyer recounts. “He used this as an opportunity to collect intelligence by eavesdropping on the British officers who dined there, and also to smuggle food to Americans taken prisoner by the redcoats.” Fraunces was later honored by Congress for foiling a plot to assassinate George Washington, and for gathering evidence about the treachery of Benedict Arnold.

After the Revolution was won, George Washington famously bade farewell to his troops at Fraunces Tavern, and the building was later used as the first offices of the federal Departments of State, War, and Treasury.

“New York and Lower Manhattan were really at the center of the American Revolution,” Mr. Dwyer adds. “That’s the story this exhibition aims to tell.”

“Path to Liberty: The Emergence of a Nation” is part of the Fraunces Tavern Museum’s broader Liberty 250 program, which will commemorate the semiquincentennial throughout the year. For more information, please click here.

Matthew Fenton

Hors de Locavores

Agoraphiliacs Rejoice: Greenmarkets Bring Great Bounty to Lower Manhattan

Lower Manhattan’s seasonal farm-to-table market scene is in full swing, with half a dozen venues offering comestibles from more than 100 artisanal sources throughout the region. The oldest of these is Tribeca’s Saturday market outside Washington Market Park, which began in 1981. On the east side, the Fulton Stall Market, a non-profit indoor/outdoor farmers market, has offered locally grown fresh food since 2015. Read more...

Letter

Re: A Beacon Restored, June 2, 2026

To the editor,

Thank you for this article. I pass the Titanic Memorial Lighthouse when returning home from work, and was always puzzled by the ball atop the pole. Now it makes sense, as longitude and marine chronometers enabled modern seagoing navigation. Glad to know that this structure is staying put.

Gary

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DOWNTOWN CALENDAR

Thursday, June 11

10am-12pm

Mah Jongg Lessons

200 Rector Place

Learn the rules and mechanics of American Mah-Jongg. Free.

12pm-8pm

Battery Park Wines

South End Avenue

One-year anniversary celebration, with samples of different products throughout the afternoon. Free.

1pm

BPC Homeowners Coalition Press Conference

Rector Place and South End Avenue

Assembly members Grace Lee and Charles Fall announce the passage of A4537A and S01462A, bills in the State Assembly and State Senate that establish a ground rent program for Battery Park City residents, and urge Governor Hochul to sign the bill into law.

1pm-3pm

Fiber Art Crafts Studio

200 Rector Place

Bring your projects, which can include—but are not limited to—knitting, crocheting, embroidery and small-loom weaving. Free.

1:30pm

Battery Urban Farm Tour

Battery Park

Learn how produce grown and local wildlife is supported in the heart of downtown New York City. Free.

4pm

Battery Park City Tour: The South Neighborhood

Skyscraper Museum, 39 Battery Place

Battery Park City’s southern district is home to the Skyscraper Museum and includes some of BPC’s earliest landscapes and infrastructure, as well as the residential enclaves built in the 1990s that followed the 1979 Cooper Eckstut Master Plan. Starting in the Museum’s gallery to see historic views of the waterfront, then move outside to visit Robert F. Wagner Jr. Park, South Cove, and more. Free.

6pm

The Killer and Frank Lloyd Wright

Mysterious Bookshop, 58 Warren Street

Book signing and reading by Casey Sherman, author of The Killer and Frank Lloyd Wright.

6:30pm

Tyrants and Rogues

South Street Seaport Museum, 213 Water Street

Less than a month before America marks its 250th anniversary, join historian Robert G. Parkinson for a fresh look at the important document that changed the course of history. Drawing on his new book, Tyrants and Rogues: Understanding the Declaration of Independence, Parkinson will explore the conflicts, fears, and political struggles that shaped the Declaration. From attacks on colonial legislatures and courts to the use of military force against civilians, the grievances reveal what Revolutionary leaders believed threatened their rights, liberties, and way of life. Free.

6:30pm-8:30pm

A Queer Poetry Reading & Celebration

Poets House, 10 River Terrace

Featuring performances by queer poets and finalists for the LGBTQ+ Poetry Lammy’s. Free.

7pm

The Downtown Beats

Asphalt Green, 212 North End Avenue

Concert and community sing-along in memory of Tom Goodkind, community leader and founder of the TriBattery Pops. Donations accepted for a scholarship in his honor. Free.

7pm

Social Animals

McNally Jackson, 4 Fulton Street

Book reading. Three women. One dog park. Things are about to get messy. $5+.

7pm

Ferris Bueller's Day Off

World Trade Center North Oculus Plaza

Free outdoor movie.

7pm

The Warning

Pier 17 Rooftop

The Warning performs, with special guest Charlotte Sands. Check website for price.

8pm

Tribeca film Festival at 25: A Conversation With Co-Founders Jane Rosenthal and Robert De Niro

Borough of Manhattan Community College, 199 Chambers Street

Tribeca Film Festival co-founders Jane Rosenthal and Robert De Niro reflect on the founding of the festival as an act of urban renewal and radical optimism. $42+.

Friday, June 12

11am-11:30am

Curator Tour: Native New York—From the Bronx to Buffalo

National Museum of the American Indian, One Bowling Green

The Revolutionary War (1775–1783) tested the bonds of the Haudenosaunee (Mohawk, Oneida, Tuscarora, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca nations) Confederacy, an alliance of six nations that controlled most of the territory now known as New York State. Learn more about Indigenous history on both frontiers of the war in relation to the Mohican, Oneida, and Cayuga communities and in the war’s aftermath at Buffalo Creek. Repeated at 1pm.

12pm-1pm

BPC Resiliency Drop-In

6 River Terrace

Meet the Community Construction Liaison and members of the North/West Battery Park City Resiliency project team, get your questions answered, and give your feedback on the work underway.

12pm-5pm

Flag Day Parade, Celebration & Open House

Fraunces Tavern Museum, 54 Pearl Street

Flag Day commemorates the adoption of the flag of the United States on June 14, 1777, by resolution of the Second Continental Congress. Since 1916, Sons of the Revolution in the State of New York, Inc. has hosted the Flag Day Parade, celebration, and Fraunces Tavern Museum Open House. See story above.

3pm

World Cup on the Terrace

Perelman Performing Arts Center Plaza

Open-air viewing of FIFA World Cup soccer match between Canada and Bosnia & Herzegovina. A minimum of one beverage purchase per person is required.

6pm

Sounds of Park Avenue

Skyscraper Museum, 39 Battery Place

Mioi Takeda & Lynn Bechtold will perform a mix of classical favorites and newer contemporary gems.

7pm-8:30pm

Sunset Singing Circle

Irish Hunger Memorial Plaza

Singer/songwriter Terre Roche leads this weekly singing program of classic and contemporary tunes for beginners and seasoned crooners alike. Free.