Walking around Lower Manhattan between towers of steel and glass, it’s hard to imagine the small farmhouses of the Dutch settlers who named their outpost New Amsterdam in the 1620s.

Yet there’s plenty of history to be found on this tip of the island, along the narrow streets that meander between Battery Park and the East River Promenade. Many museums and landmarks chart the progression of inhabitants from Native Americans to the Dutch to the British who renamed the settlement New York, and later to the millions of immigrants who landed on Ellis Island. Here are thumbnail sketches of the places we visited.