Fraunces Tavern is the oldest surviving building in Manhattan, or very nearly so. The Queen's Head Tavern opened here in 1762, run by Samuel Fraunces, a West Indian innkeeper whose mixed-race background made him a suspect in loyalist circles but whose hospitality made his tavern the hub of patriot New York. On December 4, 1783, with the Revolutionary War won and the British finally evacuating the city, George Washington gathered his officers in the Long Room upstairs for a farewell dinner.
He embraced each man and wept, a scene that left even the toughest veterans in tears. Washington then walked out this door, boarded a barge, and crossed to New Jersey to resign his commission and return to Mount Vernon. The building was nearly destroyed twice, restored in 1907, and today houses a museum and a restaurant on the ground floor.
Step inside if it is open; the Long Room where those officers wept is still there, preserved on the second floor.