Governors Island lies within the Lenapehoking, the ancestral homeland of the Lenape. The Lenape lived on Governors Island seasonally, using it as a site for hunting, fishing and gathering. They called the island Pagganack, a name referring to its plentiful nut-bearing trees. Dutch settlers landed on ‘Noten Eylandt,’ as they called it (meaning Nut Island, a translation of the Lenape name), in 1624, encountering the Lenape for the first time. Many Dutch settlers relocated to Manhattan the next year.

In 1637, Wouter van Twiller, director general of the Dutch West Indies Company, purchased Nut Island from the Lenape for a small amount of goods. The Lenape may have seen this as an agreement from the Dutch to share the Island rather than as a permanent exchange of property. Van Twiller built a house and a windmill on the Island, which have long since vanished.

This building, though called “the Dutch house,” is not the one built by Van Twiller. It was built in 1846 in the Dutch style by the United States Army as a storehouse, later converting it into officers’ quarters in 1920.

British forces took New Amsterdam and its surroundings from the Dutch in 1664 including the island they called Nutten Island (after the Dutch name), using it to house an army fort and garrison. Governors Island got its modern name in 1699, when it was “reserved for the benefit and accommodation of His Majesty’s governors.” This likely meant it was used for recreation; one governor briefly designated the island a game preserve for English pheasants.

The house in front of you was never the British governor’s house, though it did house the U.S. Army commanding officer for a time. Built in 1813, it is the oldest habitable structure on Governors Island.

At the outset of the Revolutionary War in 1776, the Continental Army constructed earthen fortifications on Governors Island to protect the harbor from British ships. Though American forces abandoned the Island during the British capture of New York, the Army began work on a permanent fortification, Fort Jay, in 1794. Named for Chief Justice John Jay and located on the Island’s highest point, the Fort was completed in 1800. While many parts of the Fort were rebuilt over the years, the original decorated gate, sally port, counterscarp and magazine remain.

Many stories romanticize the history of Fort Jay. In one of them, the stone carver who sculpted the eagle over the Fort’s entrance, who was also a prisoner on the Island, saved the commanding officer’s daughter from falling debris during construction. According to the story, the stone carver received a pardon. A different story from after the Civil War relates that the ghost of a Confederate spy who was executed on the Island haunts the fort’s parapets to this day.

When it was completed in 1811, Castle Williams became a model for fort construction across the country. With 40-foot-high and 8-foot-thick walls boasting over 100 pieces of artillery, it was a feat of contemporary military engineering. By the Civil War, however, Castle Williams had become mostly obsolete as a military fortress. It was used as a prison for Confederate soldiers and officers during the war and housed nearly 1,000 prisoners at its most crowded. Castle Williams remained a military prison until 1965, when the Army transferred Governors Island to the Coast Guard, who repurposed the Castle for community-related use by the Island’s residents.

The Victorian wood houses in Nolan Park once served as homes for officers’ families. Between 1878 and 1904, these red brick houses for higher-ranking officers, like colonels and generals, were built in the area that came to be known as Colonels Row.

The U.S. Army built the hospital at the north end of Colonels Row in 1933 to serve as the Island's infirmary. Later, the structure was partially converted to add more housing for enlisted men. It remained an active hospital treating thousands of patients through the Korean War era until the Coast Guard closed it in 1965. Image from the personal collection of Ann Buttenwieser, author of Governors Island: The Jewel of New York Harbor.

The Colonels Row area marks the division between the Island’s original coastline and the South Island, a land reclamation effort that was completed in the early 20th Century. By 1902, the Army had outgrown the Island and began to enlarge it to accommodate more facilities. The ambitious expansion used landfill excavated in the construction of the new Lexington Avenue subway line to add over 100 acres of new land, more than doubling the Island's size.

The Governors Island railroad was built to help move goods and materials around the island during and after the land expansion. With only 8 miles of track, it was sometimes referred to as the world’s shortest railroad. Continue through Liggett Archway to access the next stop on the tour.

Once finished, the South Island’s flat terrain became home to a makeshift airfield. At a public event in 1909, Orville Wright took off from Governors Island for the first American flight over water. Other early aviators also visited the island, including Ruth Law who landed here in 1916, the day after breaking the record for American cross-country flight distance. Image from the personal collection of Ann Buttenwieser, author of Governors Island: The Jewel of New York Harbor.

The airfield continued in use until 1918, when the South Island became too crowded with buildings to safely allow takeoffs and landings, but the desire for an airfield on Governors Island persisted. In 1926, then Congressman LaGuardia proposed a resolution in Congress to build a permanent airport here to serve the NY/NJ area, sparking lively debate between public officials and the Army. The idea was so contentious that some believed that Liggett Hall was purposely built across the Island’s widest point to eliminate the possibility of a permanent airfield.

The largest building on Governors Island, Liggett Hall was built to house all 1,375 members of the Army’s 16th Infantry Regiment, “New York’s Own.” The first building ever designed to hold an entire regiment, it is as long as the Chrysler Building is tall. In 1967, Liggett Hall became the Coast Guard's Training Center. Image from the personal collection of Ann Buttenwieser, author of Governors Island: The Jewel of New York Harbor.

After nearly two centuries on Governors Island, the U.S. Army needed still more room than the Island could offer. They vacated in 1965 and the Coast Guard moved in with over 5,400 personnel living on the Island at a time. As during the Army years, Coast Guard families who lived on the Island frequented amenities such as the bowling alley, movie theater, two churches, synagogue and swimming pool. This photo was taken by Nick Pusloskie.

For 32 years, the Island remained an important part of Armed Forces operations, with many Coast Guard commands headquartered here. Several high-profile political meetings were also held on the Island during these years, including in 1988, the last summit between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev.

The Coast Guard departed in 1997 leaving an empty island ready for its next chapter. For the next eight years, it would remain unoccupied, closed to the public, largely abandoned and left alone.

In 2001, 22 acres of the North Island including Fort Jay and Castle Williams were designated the Governors Island National Monument, to be operated by the National Park Service. Two years later the federal government sold the remaining 150 acres to the City and State of New York for one dollar, with the provision that much of the Island would be used for public benefit. In 2005, the Island formally opened to the public for tours.

The plan to redevelop the South Island centered on parkland. The first phase of the new parkland opened in 2014, adding 30 acres of brand-new lawns, ball fields, play areas, the revamped Liggett Terrace and the popular Hammock Grove. In 2016, the Hills, the culminating feature of the new parkland, opened to the public. Their dramatic slopes, blanketed with vegetation, rise up to 70 feet above sea level and provide panoramic views of New York Harbor, the Statue of Liberty and the surrounding skylines.

As you stroll along the new park’s curving pathways and across its rolling lawns, you may discover Cabin, a permanent installation by Rachel Whiteread; the longest slide in New York City, at 57 feet long and three stories high; picnic areas and peaceful groves; and beautifully planted natural areas that provide homes to local wildlife. This new parkland places resiliency at the forefront of its design, mitigating wave action along the shoreline and raising much of the Island above the 100-year flood zone, ensuring the survival of plants, structures and the landscape itself well into the next century.