Artifacts offer details of NY's Fulton St.

Today's hustle and bustle on Fulton Street in lower Manhattan may not be all that different from 19th century life on that commercial-residential strip.

Proof surfaced this fall when city archaeologist Alyssa Loorya and her team unearthed a trove of more than 5,000 artifacts at the Fulton Street reconstruction project, where crews are replacing a 190-year-old water pipe.

The objects found will help paint a more detailed 18th and 19th century portrait of Fulton Street, where "there were grocers, ship makers, cabinet makers and residential homes that were very wealthy," Loorya said. "It was an active commercial residential area, which is what it is today."

The find was discovered under 6 feet of dirt, where a foundation wall was unearthed by construction crews, Loorya said. The artifacts looked like they came from the basement of a home that may have belonged to Stephanus Van Cortlandt, the city's first native-born mayor.

Artifacts include porcelain china dinnerware and an imported bottle of German mineral water.

"Finding clean drinking water has always been a problem for New Yorkers," said Loorya, owner of Chrysalis Archaeological Consultants in Brooklyn.

Lower Manhattan residents got their drinking water from "Collect Pond," which is now Foley Square, she said. Once that water became polluted, New York started to build its water tunnel infrastructure to bring water from upstate.

Also discovered at the site were ink bottles, stacks of soup bowls, gravy boats, egg cups painted in English flower designs in green and blue, and a serving platter decorated with an Asian design of a Buddhist Zen temple, Loorya said.

Hundreds of ceramic shards are being washed and dried and "will be put together," she said. Later they will be displayed at local museums and businesses.

The newfound archaeological site will also be included in a map that documents where old buildings once stood. "All this work will enable us to put a better historical perspective on how the city came to be," she said.

New York City's relationship with history has always been unusual, Loorya said. "The city has always been about capitalism and commercial development. Manhattan grew quickly, first building it up and then tearing it down, and moving into the future."

But when the city's past does surface, "people are really interested. There is always that wow factor of 'I never knew that,' " said Loorya, who works to bring the past to life with the stories of "everyday people. I like to learn how they lived and make it relevant to the modern day."