This national monument was once a fortification, built for the War of 1812. As a theater, it did host Jenny Lind; it was then the state-run Emigrant Landing Depot, which it would remain until 1889, when the federal government took over the job of processing incoming passengers.

Following Griggs and Weatherby’s itinerary, the next stop is Bowling Green, where there “was once a leaden statue of George III, which, at the commencement of the Revolution, was torn down and moulded into bullets.”

Back in the 1860s, a visit to Trinity’s spire — then the tallest tower in the city — was the one constant in every guidebook. Visitors have to be content with the view from across the street — the steeple has been closed to the public since 1883.

Miller steers his visitors from the Treasury to 55 Wall Street, the old Merchant’s Exchange. Even in the 19th century, Wall Street was one of the city’s most crowded thoroughfares: Miller warns walkers that at “every moment” they “are in danger of being jostled or pushed aside by … crowds of pedestrians, all eagerly in pursuit of something.”

Griggs and Wetherby wander around Trinity’s cemetery, including the graves of Alexander Hamilton, Commodore James “Don’t Give Up the Ship” Lawrence and “Lieutenant Ludlow.” Ludlow was Lawrence’s second-in-command on the USS Chesapeake and is buried alongside his commanding officer.

Wetherby and Griggs stop at St. Paul’s Chapel, having first glanced at the still-under-construction New York Herald building across the street.

Then, there's a quick stop at the now-demolished Astor Hotel — where Wetherby writes that “the thirsty can bibulate and the hungry can be fed (if their impecuniosity is not too great to prevent them)." The site is now home to a Staples and a New York Sports Club.

City Hall Park’s poor reputation would endure for over a century. As recently as the 1980s, Parks Commissioner Henry J. Stern was calling it a “shabby, rundown patch of grass and roots surrounding a parking lot.” Part of the park’s downfall came in 1869, when the lower quadrant was taken over by construction of the new main post office, finished in 1880.

In New York As It Is, Miller calls City Hall, constructed at great expense from 1803–1810, “an imposing edifice” but saves most of his praise for the clock in the cupola. Wetherby similarly tries to impress his visitor with the massive timepiece.

While A.T. Stewart’s Marble Palace (a “great emporium of costly shawls, satins, silks, brocades, &c.”) still stands at the northeast corner of Broadway and Chambers Street — filled mostly with New York City government offices — almost all of the other locations that New York As It Is and the Pocket Companion point out are long gone.

Wetherby and Griggs stop for lunch at Taylor’s Saloon, which was housed in the ground floor of the International Hotel at the corner of Franklin Street. Wetherby explains it is “the favorite resort … of the fashion and elite of New York,” pointing out the variegated marble flooring and the $3,500 ceiling embellishments. Alas, Taylor’s is all but gone today. When the building was “renovated” in 2010, only a smattering of original architectural details were preserved.

In New York As It Is, James Miller points out Haughwout & Co., which today stands as one of the finest cast-iron structures in Soho.

The next real point of interest that visitors can actually step inside is Grace Church, at the corner of 10th Street. Miller first praises the James Renwick-designed structure as “the most ornate of the ecclesiastical buildings” in the city before noting it contains “a little too much theatrical glitter in the interior, to comport with the chastened solemnities of religious worship.”

Both tours then bring walkers to the equestrian statue of George Washington in Union Square. As Wetherby tells Griggs: “That is the bronze statue of the immortal Washington. It was designed and executed by Mr. [Henry Kirke] Brown.… This one cost upwards of $30,000. On the opposite side of the square … a companion statue of Abraham Lincoln is to be erected.”

Union Square marks the end of Miller’s walk in New York As It Is; Griggs and Wetherby — after stopping in the Steinway piano showroom — extend theirs a little farther up Broadway to Madison Square. However, other than the “10 acres … of noble trees” and the General Worth monument, the sights they take in around this small park — home then to fancy houses and upscale hotels — are wholly different from what I see today.

The corner of Worth and Baxter Streets is the lone “point” of the five-pointed intersection that lent its name to the area. There’s no plaque or sign. In fact, the neighborhood was already so thoroughly destroyed by 1928, that when William Asbury wrote Gangs of New York, he placed the intersection one block too far east. Martin Scorsese’s film adaptation does the same thing, as do the countless tour guides that wend their way through the neighborhood.

Five Points isn’t totally gone, however. At the corner of Mosco and Mott Streets stands the Catholic Church of the Transfiguration, originally built in 1801 as a Lutheran parish. It predates the Five Points by decades and has stood sentinel all this time as Five Points, Little Italy, and Chinatown have ebbed and flowed around it.

The Five Points House of Industry, established in 1850, stood at 155-159 Worth Street facing Paradise Square, the heart of the neighborhood. There’s no denying that the House of Industry served the community, providing education for children. Those “found sufficiently worthy” (according to the Pocket Companion) were then shipped out of the city “so as to wean them from old associates.”