NEW YORK — Perhaps the most remarkable thing about New York's newest tourist attraction is that New Yorkers want to go there.

Governors Island, a former Coast Guard facility located in New York Harbor, was opened for public tours last summer. The tours, led by National Park Service rangers, proved so popular that they are back this year, starting in late June.

Even those self-styled Gotham sophisticates who would never admit to having visited the Statue of Liberty or the top of the Empire State Building may have been overcome by curiosity about a 172-acre harbor island that was under their noses but virtually inaccessible for more than two centuries.

In fact, most of the several thousand visitors last year were "native New Yorkers" rather than out-of-towners, said Linda Neal, the NPS superintendent for Governors Island National Monument.

"Our rangers, who are used to working at the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island and hosting primarily international visitors, have been thrilled to see so many New Yorkers visiting," Neal said through a spokeswoman.

What they find is a verdant, teardrop-shaped island, 2.2 miles around and packed with fascinating snippets of history dating back to the city's origin as New Amsterdam.

Dutch settlers bought the original 90-acre island from Indians in 1637, for two ax heads, some beads and nails, and named it Nutten Island for its many nut trees. It was renamed for British colonial governors who lived there.

Separated from Brooklyn by a strait called Buttermilk Channel and accessible only by ferry from lower Manhattan, Governors Island was for 242 years a military post — Dutch, then British, then American, and only rarely open to visitors.

Although its two early 19th century forts apparently never fired in anger, they did discourage British threats against New York during the War of 1812.

The last tenant, the U.S. Coast Guard, pulled out in 1997 for budgetary reasons. The island, deserted except for a handful of caretakers and migrating geese, and rated one of the nation's 11 most endangered places by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, faced an uncertain future.

Proposals for its use included high-rise apartments, public housing, a television tower — even a casino, favored by then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani — before a public and private coalition called the Governors Island Partnership stepped in with a master plan to make use of the island while preserving its character.

In January 2003, the harbor jewel that the federal government had valued at $500 million was returned to New York City for the bargain price of one dollar.

The northern part of the island, which tourists see, is a 90-acre National Historic Landmark District, a former military post of 19th century buildings in a bucolic setting of towering trees, against the dramatic backdrop of Manhattan skyscrapers.