South Street Seaport - a tiny historic district of New York. More on the way to it can be seen swaying masts of sailing ships. In earlier times, there lay a bustling seaport.

Its history began in 1625, when the Dutch established their place in this factor. They built a wharf, the first of the street. In 1633 there was a lively Queen Street (now - Pearl Street). At first the street goes straight to the East River, but due to the discharge of waste into the river all the time she narrowed. At the beginning of the XIX century on reclaimed thus paved areas near the river South Street.

The prosperity of the port began long before the War of Independence: here brought goods from the mother country. The war devastated the port, but in 1784 here in Guangzhou went sailing ship "Empress of China". The flight was a success: the ship delivered to the US expensive tea and porcelain. Shortly port bypassed by the volume of trade in Boston and Philadelphia. It was here in 1818 began the first regular transatlantic commercial flights. Life was rough port: here based trading company sailing shops craftsmen and woodcarvers, guest houses, saloons, brothels. By the end of the XIX century, however, these places went to the shadow of desolation: the days of sailing ships have passed, and the depths of the East River were not allowed to moor large ships.

In 1966, the initiative group of citizens was able to collect in the deserted port of some old ships and make ads historic landmark district. Museum of South Street Seaport was opened a year later. Historic buildings restored, preserved real cobbles, built shopping centers. By the end of the XX century The local collection of historic ships has become one of the largest in the world.

Now berths uplifts on fifty-meter height of its four mast barque "Peking", moored alongside the schooner "Pioneer" and "Lettie G. Howard," lightship "Ambrose" tug "Helen McAllister." "Pioneer" in the season rolls tourists to the East River and the mouth of the Hudson River. In a historic building houses the Museum Quarter, where there are valid typography of the XIX century, archaeological exhibition, exhibition galleries, craft center. The collection gives an opportunity to see and understand how the sailors lived and worked sailing ships, port workers and employees. Nearby, at the corner of Fulton Street and Pearl Street, a memorial lighthouse memory of those killed in the "Titanic". Once he stood on the roof of the church of the sea, but she moved to another location, the lighthouse stayed here.

The old sailing ships moored right outside is now modern gleaming skyscrapers. However, if you turn toward the East River, as if time jumps and a half-century ago, just as then, screaming seagulls, swaying mast, splashing wave raznoyazyky hubbub of the crowd.