The fire watchtower in Marcus Garvey Park can be seen in this pair of images from 1932, looking more or less as we would expect:

https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/a0189180-c550-012f-e1a3-58d385a7bc34#/?uuid=510d47dd-4ab7-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99

In another image, though, from 1885, we see the tower from more or less the same vantage point:

Note however in this image (from Columbia University) the tower is referred to as the "Curfew Bell and Tower":

"The cast-iron frame watchtower predates the surrounding park’s completion. Built in 1856 by Julius Kroehl, it occupies the highest point in the area. A watchman in the tower constantly looked out for fires and sounded the alarm by ringing an enormous bell. Samuel F. B. Morse’s telegraph would eventually put such towers out of business. This tower, which ceased operations in the 1870s, is the only surviving watchtower in the city."

To see the full Columbia University image:

https://dlc.library.columbia.edu/durst/cul:gf1vhhmgxs

Curfews and New York City

Curfews were discussed in this Untapped New York article:

https://untappedcities.com/2020/06/02/9-times-curfews-were-imposed-on-nyc-from-1638-to-2020/?displayall=true

And while some have been for blizzards, revolutions, Occupy Wall Street, and attempts to curb drinking, New York also has imposed racial curfews on Black (enslaved) Americans:

Sometimes curfews were applied to a specific population in New York City. In the early 1700s, the city had quite a large slave population — 42 percent of New York’s households had slaves. On Maiden Lane in 1712, 23 slaves rose up in the New York Slave Revolt in protest of restrictions placed on them, such as needing to carry a pass and being unable to meet in groups of more than three. Strict curfew laws for slaves were in effect in the 1700s within NYC, according to A History of Negro Slavery in New York by Edgar J. McManus. Curfew regulations were often relaxed to permit married slaves to visit their spouses, yet the city’s slaves were said to often violate these curfew laws and “disturbed the town with their pranks and drunken brawls.” According to McManus, “most slaves preferred punishment of any sort to leading lives devoid of human contact,” so slaves would often break curfew laws peacefully.

The last slaves were freed on July 4, 1827 in New York City, almost forty years before the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment but it should be remembered that New York City’s businessmen, political leaders, and media industry were openly hostile to Abraham Lincoln and the efforts of the Union, a situation well documented in The City of Sedition: A History of New York City During the Civil War by John Strasbaugh. 

Below is an image of the Braddock Hotel (St. Nicholas and West 126th Street) where the 1943 Harlem Riot began: