Civic monuments, street names, and archaeological excavations recall the brief but significant origins of Lower Manhattan as a key trading post in New Amsterdam. Although little survives from the colonial era, participants on this walking tour will experience the early settlement’s waterfront location, narrow winding streets, and seventeenth-century street plan, which originated in response to Native American trails and topography. We will visit the site of Fort Amsterdam, the Stadt Huys near Coenties Slip, and Stone Street. The Dutch colony’s transfer to British rule will also be recounted, with stops at locations associated with the new government and the subsequent War for Independence. Matthew A. Postal is an architectural historian who focuses on the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries and regularly leads walking tours in New York City and Brooklyn. Meet promptly at the entrance to the National Museum of the American Indian, 1 Bowling Green, New York City.