Municipal Building

History and architecture

The Municipal Building is an impressive Classical skyscraper, rising to a height of 25 stories with a tower above. It represents an effort made by the City, through the use of noted architects and sculptors, to achieve an imposing building of real beauty. The great freestanding screen of columns across the front, enframing a Classical triumphal arch, is truly monumental in scale.

This large building is ingeniously designed to bridge Chambers Street by means of a handsome barrel-vaulted passageway. It also is notable that such a large building has been able to utilize such a small site so effectively. The open area at the south Side, where the building is raised on stilts, equals in concept many contemporary structures.

The Commission finds that, among its important qualities, the Municipal Building is a handsome structure bui lt with fine materials and having many beautiful details, that it represents a bold solution of a difficult problem where a limited site is utilized to best advantage, while providing great openness at ground floor level and a splendid passage for Chambers Street through the building, and that the Municipal Building is one of the few monumental skyscrapers of the early part of the Twentieth Century.