[Illustration: GOVERNMENT HOUSE.] The house at No. 1 Broadway, looking eastward over the lower end of Bowling Green, built in 1760 by Colonel Kennedy, afterward Earl of Cassilis, and occupied in turn by the American leaders, including Washington, and by the English, including Cornwallis, Howe and Sir Henry Clinton, was the scene of Major André’s last interview with the British commander before his fatal journey to West Point. And in another house in Broadway overlooking the Green, Benedict Arnold had his quarters after his flight and the exposure of his infamous plot. Mention of the gallant young British officer, André, naturally suggests the name and fate of Nathan Hale, whose heroism is commemorated by a noble statue by MacMonnies, which faces Broadway from the lower corner of City Hall Park, not far from the spot where the American spy was hanged from an apple-tree. The Beekman “Mansion,” overlooking the East River near what is now Fifty-first Street, the scene of Hale’s trial and condemnation, survived till 1874; the Kennedy House, identified with André’s memory, lasted eight years longer. [Illustration: FEDERAL HALL.] A picturesque feature of the old town was the canal that ran from the city wall to the bay, becoming first an artery of trade, and then a centre of fashionable life, as Broad Street, which took its place, has since been a centre of commercial activity. It was directly opposite Broad Street, in Wall, that the foundations of the new City Hall were laid in 1699, the sale of the Stadt Huys helping to defray the cost of the more pretentious structure. The arms of the English Governor, Lord Bellomont, were blazoned on its walls; but two years later the marshal was called upon to remove and destroy them. When New York became the seat of the national government, the ninety-year-old City Hall, partly reconstructed and lavishly decorated, became the meeting-place of Congress. The most memorable day in its history was the 30th of April, 1789, when, attended by Chancellor Livingston and the committees of Senators and Representatives, standing upon its balcony in the presence of a great concourse, not merely of New Yorkers, but of Americans from all the colonies, gathered together from far and near, George Washington took the oath of office as first President of the United States. Where the Capitol then stood now stands the Sub-Treasury, with Ward’s bronze Washington looking gravely down from its steps upon the feverish turmoil of Wall Street.