Crossing the tributary stream at Twelfth Street, it passed a small pond between Thirteenth and Fourteenth Streets, and then ran on, over low and level ground, to Twenty-first Street, then called "Love's Lane." To the right was the swamp and marsh that afterwards became Union Square.

Following the trail farther, the hardy voyager wandered over "hills and valleys, dales and fields," through a countryside where trout, mink, otter, and muskrat swam in the brooks and pools; brant, black duck, and yellow-leg splashed in the marshes and fox, rabbit, woodcock, and partridge found covert in the thicket.

Here and there was a farm, but the city, then numbering one hundred thousand persons, was far away.

Then, in 1824, the first stretch of the Avenue, from Waverly Place to Thirteenth Street, was opened, and the northward march of the great thoroughfare began.

Let us try to picture the old town of that day, the city that was still under the shadow of the Knickerbockers.
First, at the southern extremity of the island, was the Battery and Battery Park.