Battery Park (to New Yorkers, The Battery) is a 21-acre (8.5 ha) public park located at the southern tip of Manhattan in New York City. The park is named for the artillery that was stationed there at various times by the Dutch and British in order to protect the harbor. At one end of the park is Pier A and Hope Garden, a memorial to AIDS victims. At the other end is Battery Gardens restaurant, next to the United States Coast Guard Battery Building. Along the waterfront, ferries depart for the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. To the northwest of the park lies Battery Park City, an area of landfill redevelopment built in the 1970s and 80s, which includes Robert F. Wagner Park and the Battery Park City Promenade. Together with Hudson River Park a system of greenspaces, bikeways and promenades now extend up the Hudson shoreline. A bikeway is being built through the park that will connect to the Hudson River Park bikeway, north of the park across Battery Place that runs past Battery Park City and the World Financial Center and up the West Side. Across State Street to the northeast lies the U.S. Customs House/Museum of the American Indian. Peter Minuit Plaza abuts the southeast end of the park, directly in front of the South Ferry Terminal of the Staten Island Ferry.

         The park itself was created by landfill during the 19th century, resulting in a landscaped open space at the foot of the heavily developed mainland of Manhattan Island. Skyscrapers now occupy the original land, stopping abruptly where the park begins. On State Street, the former harbor front and the northern boundary of the park, a single Federal mansion survives (illustration, right) as the Shrine of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton. Until the 1820s, the city's stylish residential district lay north of this house, between Broadway and the "North" River.