About two blocks southeast of Bowling Green, off Broad Street, is Stone Street, a charming street closed to traffic and covered with outdoor seating for the chockablock restaurants and bars. The narrow lane became the first paved street in Manhattan in 1658.

Legend has it that the street’s resident brewer, Oloff Stephensen Van Cortlandt, had the street paved at the urging of his wife and her friends, who hated the dust raised by the brewery’s horses and carts. The job was completed in three years, with most of the work done by African slaves.

At the corner of Broad and Pearl Streets is the red-brick, yellow-shuttered Fraunces Tavern (54 Pearl St., 212/966-1776), a 1907 renovation of the historic pub where George Washington bade good-bye to his troops in 1783. The tavern is set in a lovely colonial setting and offers a small museum (212/425-1778, www.frauncestavernmuseum.org, noon–5 p.m. Mon.–Sat., adults $10, students and seniors $5) with exhibits on early American history.