The New York City Hall Park was the ancient "Commons," or public pasturage, and it now contains the headquarters of the city government, and may be regarded as the political and business centre. It is enclosed by Broadway, Park Row and Chatham Street, a triangular space, formerly a sort of garden around the City Hall, but now well occupied by other buildings. At the southern extremity is the Post-office, which cost $7,000,000, a grand granite structure in Doric and Renaissance, with a fine dome and tower, which are a landmark for miles. Around this Park, and in the many streets radiating from it, are a vast aggregation of corporate institutions and great buildings devoted to all kinds of business. Here are the offices of newspapers, banks, trusts, insurance companies, railways, lawyers, politicians, exchanges, etc., with lunch-rooms and restaurants of every grade, liberally provided to feed or stimulate the multitude. The famous hotel of a past generation, the Astor House, rich in historical associations, stands on the opposite side of Broadway from the Post-office. Along Park Row are the great newspapers, and here is Printing House Square, adorned with statues of Benjamin Franklin and Horace Greeley, appropriate in this region deluged with printer's ink. Here is the Ivins Syndicate Building, finished in 1898, the loftiest structure in New York, twenty-nine stories, its towers rising three hundred and eighty-two feet. The tall and narrow Tribune Building, of red brick with white facings, has its clock tower reared two hundred and eighty-five feet, while beyond is the Pulitzer Building, of brownstone, with a gilded dome, its apex rising three hundred and seventy-five feet. The building of the American Tract Society on Nassau Street is twenty-three stories and three hundred and six feet high, with a restaurant on the top. Park Row runs into Chatham Square, over which the Brooklyn Bridge terminal comes out, with elevated and surface railroads all about. This is a location of cheap shops and concert halls, and is prolonged into the Bowery, an avenue of the humbler classes, lined with shops, theatres and saloons, generally crowded, and having four sets of street cars running on the surface, besides the elevated roads above. The ancient Dutch farms on this part of the island were known as the "Bauereies," whence came the name of the street.