Battery Park view of harbor
— — the harbour that taught a city how to arrive.
Not only on a wall.
“A waterfront park at the foot of Manhattan, open to the wind off the Upper Bay. From the railing the eye reaches the Statue of Liberty on Liberty Island and, further right, the brick rows of Ellis Island. Ferries leave from the slip every half hour. The Castle Clinton rotunda anchors the lawn behind, low and round, holding the ticket line out of the weather. from the studio
Battery Park view of harbor, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The Battery, often called Battery Park, occupies about twenty-five acres at the southern tip of Manhattan, on the seam between Lower Manhattan and the Upper Bay. The park takes its name from a line of artillery batteries that defended the colonial settlement of New Amsterdam in the seventeenth century. Today it holds Castle Clinton, the Sphere salvaged from the World Trade Center plaza, a working seal-themed carousel, and the slip where Statue Cruises ferries leave for Liberty and Ellis Islands. The Staten Island Ferry terminal sits at its eastern edge.
The view from the seawall reads in three layers. Closest is the Upper Bay itself, busy with tugs, ferries, and the occasional cruise hull bound for the terminals in Red Hook or Bayonne. Middle distance brings Liberty Island, the Statue of Liberty rising about three hundred and five feet from the base of her pedestal to the tip of the torch, since her dedication in October 1886. Further north along the same line of sight, Ellis Island holds the red-brick Main Building where, between 1892 and 1954, more than twelve million arrivals were processed.
Castle Clinton, the round sandstone fort at the centre of the lawn, was built between 1808 and 1811 as part of the harbour defences that ringed New York before the War of 1812. It has since been an entertainment hall called Castle Garden, the immigrant landing depot that preceded Ellis Island and processed roughly eight million arrivals between 1855 and 1890, the original New York Aquarium, and now a National Monument under the National Park Service. Its low circular wall still holds the ticket line for the harbour ferries.