New York County Courthouse

Coordinates: 40°42′51.2″N 74°0′5.5″W / 40.714222°N 74.001528°W / 40.714222; -74.001528
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

New York State Supreme Court Building
City of New York
Design and construction
Architect(s)Guy Lowell
New York City Landmark
DesignatedFebruary 1, 1966 (exterior)[2]
March 24, 1981 (interior)[3]
Reference no.0083 (exterior)[2]
1124 (interior)[3]

The New York State Supreme Court Building, originally known as the New York County Courthouse, at 60

New York County Clerk
.

The granite-faced hexagonal building was designed by

New York City Landmarks: the exterior was designated on February 1, 1966[4] and the interior on March 24, 1981.[5]

Site

The building is somewhat of an older sibling to

.

Architecture

Exterior

The building's mass and scale give it the appearance of a temple. A broad set of steps sweeps up from Foley Square to a massive

acroteria by Frederick Warren Allen include three statues: Law, Truth, and Equity. A frieze bears the inscription "The true administration of justice is the firmest pillar of good government", a quotation taken from a letter written by George Washington to Attorney General Edmund Randolph on September 28, 1789.[6][7][8][9] The inscription is a slight misquote; Washington actually referred to the "due administration" of justice and not the "true administration" of justice, an error discovered by the New York Post in 2009.[10] The error was apparently made by the architect, Guy Lowell, and the mistake was repeated by others, including Charles Warren in his Pulitzer Prize–winning The Supreme Court in United States History (1922).[6]

Along Foley Square, the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse (right) sits next to the New York State Supreme Court Building (left). On the far right can be seen part of the Manhattan Municipal Building.

The stone steps leading up to the colonnaded entrance were flanked by two allegorical statues, Justice and Authority, both designed by the

Brooklyn Bridge–City Hall station and were then moved to the New York County Courthouse.[14]

New York County Courthouse Map, 1955–56

Interior

The rotunda is 200 feet (61 m) in circumference and rises 75 feet (23 m) to a

Works Project Administration.[9][15] Pusterla also executed murals in the courthouse's Jury Assembly Rooms on the fourth floor and Ceremonial Courtroom on the third floor.[15]

Law Through the Ages is divided into six

early colonial, with the final section portraying George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Above the seated figures are portraits of six lawgivers: Hammurabi, Moses, Solon, Justinian, Blackstone and John Marshall.[5]

Restoration of the mural (along with a stained-glass window also by Pusterla) took place in 1988;[17] the project received a 1989 Design Award from the Public Design Commission of the City of New York.[18] The restoration project, which was privately funded by money raised from New York City judges and attorneys,[15][17] was part of a broader renovation campaign in the 1980s and 1990s to protect the courthouse's historic art from water seepage and other damage caused by neglect.[15]

History

Lowell's prize-winning 1913 design, never built, had a circular plan and would have altered Worth Street.
As built, the courthouse is smaller and has a hexagonal plan.

The architect was selected through a design competition, which Boston architect Guy Lowell won in 1913.[1] Lowell originally proposed a circular building, to be built at the vastly expensive sum of $20 to $30 million. Construction was delayed by World War I and the design was remade as a smaller and less expensive hexagonal building—a Temple of Justice.[1] The building was designed in the Roman classical style.[1] Work began in 1919.[1]

The courthouse's dedication ceremony took place in February 1927, two weeks after Lowell died.

Benjamin Cardozo and Associate Judges of the Court of Appeals Frederick E. Crane and Irving Lehman were present at the event.[1]

In popular culture

Many films and television series have been shot at the New York County Courthouse.[19] These include:

Under construction in 1924

In addition, in 2022, a recreation of the court building was completed in the sandbox game Minecraft by a team of over 2,000 players as part of their efforts to recreate New York City during the Build the Earth movement.[20]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Legal History and Architecture of New York County Supreme Courthouse, Historical Society of the Courts of the State of New York (accessed September 27, 2015).
  2. ^ a b "New York County Courthouse" (PDF). New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. February 1, 1966.
  3. ^ a b "New York County Courthouse" (PDF). New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. March 24, 1981.
  4. ^ New York County Courthouse Designation Report, New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (February 1, 1966)
  5. ^ a b New York County Courthouse Interior Designation Report Archived 2012-08-17 at the Wayback Machine, New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (March 24, 1981). Accessed September 2, 2011.
  6. ^ a b Ben Zimmer, "When Typos are Set in Stone", Visual Thesaurus (February 18, 2009).
  7. ^ "New York County Courthouse Pediment, New York Supreme Court, abt 1924" Archived 2012-03-30 at the Wayback Machine on the Frederick Warren Allen website
  8. ^ a b "New York State Supreme Court Building", New York City Department of Citywide Administrative Services (accessed September 27, 2015).
  9. ^ Golding, Bruce. "George Denied His Due", New York Post (February 16, 2009).
  10. ^ Lucy D. Rosenfeld & Marina Harrison, Art on Sight: The Best Art Walks In and Near New York City (Countryman Press: 2013), pp. 32–33.
  11. ^ a b c Marina Harrison & Lucy D. Rosenfeld. Artwalks in New York: Delightful Discoveries of Public Art and Gardens in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island (NYU Press: 2004), pp. 23–24.
  12. ^ "Authority and Justice: Philip Martiny". CultureNOWg. Retrieved February 25, 2018.
  13. ^ Municipal Reference Library Notes, Volumes 35–36, Municipal Reference Library (1961), p. 142.
  14. ^ a b c d e f g John F. Werner, The New York County Courthouse: A Brief Architectural/Design History (March 12, 2008). Material printed in conjunction with the talk "Circles and Hexagons upon a Square: Urbanism, Architecture and Civic Identity at 60 Centre Street" (March 12, 2008) by Jon Ritter, Assistant Professor in the Department of History at New York University.
  15. ^ New York State Supreme Court, New York County - Civil Branch, Court Tours. Accessed April 12, 2011
  16. ^ , The New York Times (April 18, 1988).
  17. ^ "NYC Design: Eighth Annual Awards for Excellence in Design, June 8, 1989". NYC: The Official Website of the City of New York. Archived from the original on November 29, 2018. Retrieved July 27, 2019.
  18. ^ a b c d e f g h i j William A. Gordon, Shot on This Site: A Traveler's Guide to the Places and Locations Used to Film Famous Movies and TV Shows (Citadel Press, 1995), p. 209.
  19. ^ Karel, Daniel (March 10, 2022). "The 2,731-Person Project to Build New York City in Minecraft". Curbed. Retrieved February 22, 2024.

External links