City Hall
A historic and beautiful home of government in Lower Manhattan
Completed in 1811, New York's City Hall is the oldest in the nation that still serves its original function. In its day, City Hall was erected at the northern boundary of Manhattan on land where the British once had a barracks, an armory and a prison. Today it sits in City Hall Park near many notable downtown sites. This house of government is both historically and architecturally significant.
Built between 1803 and 1811, the building was designed by New Yorker John McComb Jr. and the Frenchman Joseph François Mangin. Working on their only known collaboration, the two men designed a grand space with influences from the American-Georgian and French Renaissance styles. McComb also designed Hamilton Grange as a residence for founding father Alexander Hamilton, today a National Park. The rear of City Hall was initially built using brownstone instead of marble. The architects believed the city would never extend further north then the City Hall site so no one would ever see the unsightly backside of their grand building.
Many historic events have taken place inside City Hall's second floor Governor's Room and large rotunda. Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant both laid in state in the rotunda and enormous crowds gathered to pay their respects. The historically appointed Governor's Room hosted such famed visitors as Albert Einstein and the Marquis de Lafayette. Today George Washington's desk, used when the city was the US Capital, is preserved there.
During the mid 1950s, the building was restored and the façade reclad in its entirety with Alabama limestone -- a bonus of this restoration was that finally the view of the back of this historic building was on par with the front.
