Building of the Day: 209 Joralemon Street
The BOTD is a no-frills look at interesting structures of all types and from all neighborhoods. There will be old, new, important, forgotten, public, private, good and bad. Whatever strikes our fancy. We hope you enjoy. Address: 209 Joralemon Street, corner of Court Street Name: Brooklyn City Hall, now Borough Hall Neighborhood: Downtown Brooklyn Year…
The BOTD is a no-frills look at interesting structures of all types and from all neighborhoods. There will be old, new, important, forgotten, public, private, good and bad. Whatever strikes our fancy. We hope you enjoy.
Address: 209 Joralemon Street, corner of Court Street
Name: Brooklyn City Hall, now Borough Hall
Neighborhood: Downtown Brooklyn
Year Built: 1845-48, 1898
Architectural Style: Greek Revival.
Architects: Gamaliel King (1845), Vincent Griffith, Staughton & Staughton (1898)
Landmarked: Yes
Why chosen: In a wonderful Brooklyn moment, Gamaliel King became the winner of the competition to design Brooklyn’s City Hall. He was a builder and a grocer, not a trained architect. His design was chosen when the previous winner, a man named Calvin Pollard, bowed out after a recession halted building for a few years. King designed a beautiful Greek Revival building with an impressive front entrance, much better than Manhattan’s City Hall, if you ask me. There’s been a lot of work done in the building since it’s been built, so a lot of names are on its roster. In 1895, a fire destroyed the original wooden cupola, and the firm of Staughton & Staughton, along with Vincent Griffith, designed a new cupola. In 1902, Axel Hedman, a prolific Brooklyn architect, was hired to change the obsolete Common Council room into a courtroom, and his Beaux Arts design perfectly complemented the classical design of the building. By the time the designs for Cadman Plaza were rolling around, in the 1930’s, there was talk of tearing Borough Hall down, as it was seen as some as unnecessary, since Brooklyn was no longer a separate city, and the building had only been a real city hall for about 60 years. They also thought it was ugly and unremarkable. Fortunately, no one did tear it down, although it is one of the few survivors in the new Cadman Plaza. It was landmarked in 1966, during the LPC’s first year. A total restoration was undertaken by the firm of Conklin and Rossant, from 1980-89, which including the magnificent recladding of the copper shingling of the cupola, done by the same firm that reclad the Statue of Liberty, and a restoration of Hedman’s courtroom and other interior spaces was completed. Today Borough Hall is the best it has ever been. Go visit!
BOD, I took this photo on one of those ridiculous hot days last week, when neither man nor beast was out. If I didn’t have an appointment, I wouldn’t have been there either.
Clock tower says 10:55am however not a single human captured in the photograph. And this being one of the busiest plazas in the entire downtown area. Amazing!
Thank you for including the restoration firm and date of their work. That is often a major but overlooked chapter in the lives of historic monuments. Too often architecture critics believe that historic buildings are best just left alone to age gracefully. Obviously they have never owned a brownstone.
I love the name Gamaliel, although it does not glide off the tongue during a lecture.
I dislike that little barrier that city engineers placed around the roof a few years ago -is it to prevent pigeons from committing suicide? To prevent a chunk of snow from hitting Marty on the head as he enters and exits? It’s useless and an aesthetic error.
On the other hand I do like the fountain and even the ironwork. It is a handsome City Hall we can be proud of.
Do you know anything about the Gettysburg plaque on the northeast corner? I think it dates from 1898.