Building type
Courthouses, fences, gatehouses, and public buildings that give the city its official face.
Civic landmarks are scattered, but together they show how broad the category really is. The collection ranges from monumental federal buildings to smaller urban devices that still shape how the city is understood and navigated.
21 building histories
Civic · 1869-70
215 East 49th Street, New York, NY
Amster Yard is a picturesque, L-shaped courtyard and is one of the most charming enclosures in the City. Like the exterior of the street facades the brick walls facing the garden have all been altered. The architectural...
Read the storyCivic · 1896-1900
27 Madison Avenue, New York, NY
Distinguished for its classic beauty, this small marble courthouse represents in a civic building, the epitome of collaboration between architect, sculptor, and mural painter. Classic Eclectic in design, but influenced...
Read the storyCivic · 1771
Bowling Green Park, New York, NY
The simple iron fence around Bowling Green Park is closely associated with the dramatic events of the American Revolution. It was erected in 1771 to protect the equestrian statue of George III, unveiled August 16, 1770,...
Read the storyCivic · 1901
65 Liberty Street, New York, NY
This massive marble building, built at the turn of the century, is notable for its grandeur and rich detail. It is outstanding today as a relatively low but impressive building surrounded by skyscrapers. The owners have...
Read the storyCivic · 1802-11
260 Broadway, New York, NY
The New York City Hall is the most beautiful city hall in the United states.
Read the storyCivic · 1894-95
434 West 119th Street, New York, NY
The Croton Aqueduct West 119th Street Gatehouse was constructed in 1894-95 by contractor Peter J. Moran for the New York City Department of Public Works, under the supervision of George W. Birdsall, chief engineer of...
Read the storyCivic · 1834–1842
26 Wall Street, New York, NY
George Washington took his first presidential oath at Federal Hall in 1789, but the building visible today came later. The present marble structure was built between 1834 and 1842 as a United States custom house, on the...
Read the storyCivic · 1924
33 Liberty Street, New York, NY
This enormous building occupies an entire city block; it is fourteen stories high and has five stories below grade. The remarkable stone exterior is reminiscent of an early Italianate Renaissance palace with the...
Read the storyCivic · 1894-96
314 West 54th Street, New York, NY
The former Eleventh Judicial District Courthouse, one of the few remaining nineteenth-century public buildings in the western portion of Midtown, and one of only three district courthouse buildings of that era extant in...
Read the storyCivic · 1912
60 Centre Street, New York, NY
The portico on the front of this great courthouse creates an extremely imposing entrance with its monumental columns and pediment surmounted by three large, sculptured figures. The sides of the building repeat the scale...
Read the storyCivic · 1899-1911
31 Chambers Street, New York, NY
The Surrogate's Court was designed in the French Classic Eclectic Style and is a fine example of civic architecture at the turn of the Century. Representative of a period when the Municipality of New York felt itself...
Read the storyCivic · 1895
42 West 44th Street, New York, NY
Although severe in its Classic Eclectic design, the limestone facade of this building has great strength and dignity as befits a structure housing distinguished members of the legal profession. With two entrances, one...
Read the storyCivic · 1891-93
170 East 121st Street, New York, NY
Of the many historic buildings erected in Harlem around the turn of the Century and still extant, the Harlem Courthouse is one of the most significant and impressive. Begun in 1891 and completed in 1893, it is...
Read the storyCivic · 1919-21
123 W 43rd St, New York, NY
Characterized by one contemporary observer as "an idea with a roof over it" Town Hall was built in 1919-1921 as a meeting hall for the city of New York. The architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White was asked by the...
Read the storyCivic · 1861-1881
52 Chambers Street, New York, NY
The Tweed Courthouse, although associated by name and history with one of New York's most notoriously corrupt city governments, is architecturally one of the city's grandest and most important civic monuments. Built...
Read the storyCivic · 1933-36
Foley Square, New York, NY
This imposing neo-classical skyscraper, begun in 1933, was the last building designed by the noted American architect Cass Gilbert, who died in 1934 while the courthouse was under construction. It was completed by his...
Read the storyCivic · 1901-07
1 Bowling Green, New York, NY
The seven-story stone Custom House was designed in the Eclectic French Renaissance Style, Art and industry joined to produce one of the splendid buildings of its period. This is a truly monumental structure, and the...
Read the storyCivic · 1892-99
641 Washington Street, New York, NY
This handsome Romanesque Revival warehouse building, now known as the Building, was built as the "Appraisers' Warehouse" by the U. S. Government. It fills an entire city block and is ten stories high. Built almost...
Read the storyCivic · 1910-13
8th Avenue & 31st Street, New York, NY
An inscription occupying the entire height and length of the frieze of the entablature crowning one of the most monumental Classic colonnades in New York quotes Herodotus, "Neither Snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of...
Read the storyCivic · 1855
E 122nd Street & Madison Avenue, New York, NY
In making a selection of outstanding architectural monuments in New York City, the Commission could not exclude from its list of distinctive, individual monuments the iron Watch Tower, located in Mount Morris Park. This...
Read the storyCivic · 1872
W 173d Street & Amsterdam Avenue, New York, NY
Since 1872, a slender and graceful water tower overlooking old High Bridge and the Harlem River has been one of Manhattan's most picturesque architectural monument; This impressive Tower resembling a medieval campanile...
Read the story