Bounded by Golden Hill Street on the North, Smith Street on the West and South, and the wharves and slips of the East River on the East, including Rodman's Slip at the foot of Golden Hill, the Long Island Ferry at the foot of Crown street and Murray's Wharf at the foot of Wall Street. Hanover Square, the main business district of the city, surrounded by the impressive houses of wealthy merchants, dominates the southern end of Queen Street, the main north-south thoroughfare in the East Ward.
The East Ward of New York City is that waterfront district along the East River found in most of the major colonial cities along the Eastern Seaboard - Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Charleston. Rough and tumble slums near the docks themselves, where the bravos and sailors of many nationalities and ethnicities come to spend their wages on doxies and hard liquor; ribaldry, merriment and frolic enough to also entice off duty soldiers of the Continental Army, many of whom were farmers living far away from such urban entertainments. At a near, though respectable distance, the houses of merchants who profit from the seaborne trade and the artisans and crafts that supply them overlook the East River, many with stepped roofs in the Dutch Fashion, sharing a view of Brookland Heights across the East River in the distance. Along Queen Street, you will find dealers in heavier and more staple merchandise, metals and sugar, clothing and groceries and liquors of all sorts.
From the North, on Queen Street, you pass Golden Hill Street, so named not for precious metal, but for the grain spilling from the overloaded wagons climbing from the docks below. At Crown Street, the Fly market, a main open market for the sale of slaughtered livestock, though the name was originally a corruption of the Dutch
vly meaning valley. Also here is the Long Island Ferry that runs across the East River to the Brookland Ferry. On Wall Street, where once stood the wall of New Amsterdam, designed to keep the British Colonists of Connecticut at bay, there is the Slave Market and farther down the Merchant Coffee house and Murray's Wharf.
Sight: The sun gazing like a bleary eye through the morning haze. Most of the people about at this hour are slaves, servants or soldiers trying to get back to their units before their absence is noticed by their commanding officers who might bring them before the general or regimental courts martial, established by the Articles of War on June 30,1775, frequently read out to the assembled soldiers. The maximum is 39 lashes for such dereliction of duty, which General Washington felt were far too few.
Smell: The smoke of fires being lit to chase the chill from the air in the neat brick houses along Queen Street, the dank smell of wooden docks soaked in seawater or perhaps something worse by the drunks and doxies passing to and fro along Water Street on their business or pleasure after dark. The fishy smell of the day's early catch being brought to market from small fishing boats tied up along the river. The smell of coffee from the coffee houses at the end of Wall Street. The tangy smell of blood already running down from the Fly Market where animals are butchered to feed the massive appetite of troops swelling the city precincts; the musk of negroes long confined below the decks of the ships tied up at Murray's Wharf, shuffling and squinting into the feeble morning sun after the long, dark voyage, assembling beneath the open pavilion of the slave market at the end of Wall Street where they are to be sold into slavery while all around them echo the call for freedom.
Hearing: The sound of waves, the creaking of ships in the wind, some few blossoming sales as they leave the port; the cries of gulls; officers barking distant orders at men hardly asleep day or night as they toil to build up the fortifications on Brooklyn Heights across the East River in anticipation of the British attack to come. The stirrings of man and beast as servants draw water and feed the animals, empty the night soil from bedpans into the streets below, and prepare the shops above the waterfront for the day's commerce.
Taste: The brackish taste of the salty East River on the breeze, the burning at the back of your throat as you recall the horrors from the night before and somehow wish to expel them from your soul. You are inclined to avoid the nicer parts of New Yoirk's East Ward as you make your way to your destination as you feel surely some pious churchman will sense the devil you have entertained the night before.
Touch: The worn cobbles beneath your feet, as water still drips from your clothes after your night in the grotto. Perhaps some alcohol bedazzled bum on the waterfront shoulders past you, a former seaman, mumbling "water, water, everywhere and not a drop to drink", clutching an empty bottle.
Second Sight: If you look to the East, you sense a naval armada bearing down to crush the puny rebellion of the colonies against the mighty British Emplre. Every pattern musket brought here bearing the seal of the English crown, in token of His Majesty's abiding affection!
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