The Battery

This guide to The Battery in New York City opens in 1884, when a young engineer named Nikola Tesla stepped ashore with four cents in his pocket and a single letter of introduction. It tells the story of Castle Garden, the sandstone fort behind you that served as America's first immigration depot, processing millions of arrivals before Ellis Island ever opened. Tesla's own name was registered here, on his way to a workshop that would put him at the center of one of the era's great rivalries.