Where to Have a July 4th Celebration Downtown That's Revolutionary

The Veteran Corps of Artillery State of New York, in period uniform, raise the flag at Castle Clinton during the 2021 July 4th celebration. Photo: Lower Manhattan Historical Association

Though fireworks will be lighting up the night-sky uptown, Downtown is the place to celebrate Independence Day in ways that are truly tied to its Revolutionary past.

For the eighth year, the Lower Manhattan Historical Association is sponsoring its annual family-friendly Independence Day flag raising and parade, kicking off at 10 a.m. in the Battery’s historic Castle Clinton. Following the raising of the Betsy Ross-designed 13-star flag and a 50-round (for 50 states) cannon firing by the Veteran Corps of Artillery State of New York, (plus brief speeches), all are invited to join the colorful procession to the South Street Seaport. 

The program continues at 2 p.m. at the Fraunces Tavern Museum’s Flag Room with “It Happened Here,” a 2-hour series of 15-minute talks on a variety of Revolutionary War topics. Among the speakers is Abby Suckle, president of CultureNOW and vice president of the Lower Manhattan Historical Association, an organization in the early stages of planning for the city’s celebration of the country’s 250th anniversary in 2025. “The whole idea of ‘It Happened Here’ is that because so much about the history of our country intersects with Lower Manhattan, we want to use it as a way to frame the discussion of who we are and where we should be going,” Suckle said in a phone interview. “That’s the theme of the big festival [in 2025] and the afternoon [at Fraunces Tavern Museum] is going to showcase a little piece of it.”

The program coincides with the opening of a new permanent exhibition at the museum, The Birch Trials, which highlights the role of Black Loyalists in the Revolutionary War. As the war drew to a close in 1783, a joint British and American commission met at Fraunces Tavern as part of the peace process. There, they decided on the eligibility of some Black Loyalists to evacuate with the British Army.  As a result, 3,000 of the Loyalists, many of whom had been enslaved, evacuated the city. The exhibit also recognizes the thousands of Black Patriots who fought for American Independence. 

At Federal Hall National Memorial is the ongoing limited engagement of “The Democracy Project,” a 45-minute, free specific production by six noted playwrights that is set in New York City during the early part of its 527 days as the first capital of the revolutionary U.S. government. With original songs by Michael R. Jackson, “‘The Democracy Project’ probes the choices of our Founders and how their actions still reverberate through America,” the producers note in a statement, “many years after ‘We the People.’”

The July 4 show begins at 11 a.m. Go here to see days and times of all performances, and to reserve free tickets. Productions continue through July 22.