City Pier A
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City Pier A
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| Location | Battery Place at the Hudson River Manhattan, New York City |
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| Coordinates | 40°42′15″N 74°1′6″W / 40.70417°N 74.01833°WCoordinates: 40°42′15″N 74°1′6″W / 40.70417°N 74.01833°W |
| Built | 1884-86 |
| Architect | George Sears Greene Jr. (engineer) |
| NRHP Reference # | 75001203 |
| Significant dates | |
| Added to NRHP | June 27, 1975 |
| Designated NYCL | July 12, 1977 |
City Pier A is a municipal pier in the Hudson River at Battery Park near the southern end of Manhattan in New York City. It has also been named Liberty Gateway. It is the last surviving historic pier in the city.
The Pier was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975, and was designated a New York City landmark in 1977.
Pier A was built from 1884 to 1886 to serve the New York City Department of Docks and Harbor Police. The engineer in charge of construction and design was George Sears Greene Jr. (1837-1922), the son of the civil engineer and Union general George S. Greene (1801-1899). The design mirrored the Statue of Liberty which could be viewed from a similar but shorter tower. The roof was tin, painted green to resemble copper. In renovation by the Battery Park City Authority this roof was discarded, and replaced with copper.
The pier was expanded in 1900 and again in 1919 with a clock installed in the pier's tower as a memorial to 116,000 US servicemen who died during World War I. The clock is a ship's clock and was donated by Daniel G. Reid, founder of United States Steel Corporation. The clock was unveiled at noon on January 25, 1919 by Rear Admiral Josiah S. McKean, with speeches made by Mayor John Francis Hylan and Docks Commissioner George Murray Hulbert. It is said to be the first World War I memorial erected in the United States.
The New York City Fire Department used the pier from 1960 to 1992 as a fireboat station. In 1991, the American Merchant Mariners' Memorial was installed on a rebuilt stone breakwater just south of Pier A, connected to it by a dock. Designed by the sculptor Marisol Escobar, the memorial depicts four merchant seamen with their sinking vessel after it had been attacked by a U-boat during World War II. One of the seamen is in the water, and is covered by the sea with each high tide.
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