The Howard T. Markey National Courts Building (formerly the National Courts Building) is a courthouse in Washington, D.C., which houses the United States Court of Federal Claims and the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. It is located at 717 Madison Place NW, east of Lafayette Square and north of the White House, and borders the Benjamin Ogle Tayloe House at 721 Madison Place NW, the former Cosmos Club building at 725 Madison Place NW, and the Cutts-Madison House at 1520 H Street NW.
Originally, the plan for the courthouse and an office building for White House staff had called for the historic houses on both sides of Lafayette Square to be razed. First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, a believer in historic preservation, urged President John F. Kennedy to find an alternative solution. Kennedy tapped architect John Carl Warnecke to come up with a plan to preserve the houses. Warnecke and Jacqueline Kennedy envisioned that the courthouse and the New Executive Office Building, a twin structure to be built on the other side of Lafayette Square, would form a backdrop for the historic houses. The two buildings remain distinctive in their own right.
The Building Committee included Chief Judge John Marvin Jones, Commissioner Marion Tinsley Bennett, and Chief Commissioner Arnold Wilson Cowen. The building was dedicated on September 20, 1967.
The courthouse was initially built for the United States Court of Customs and Patent Appeals and the United States Court of Claims, so when the two courts were abolished and merged to create the Federal Circuit in 1982, they already had a domicile in common.
In 1998, President Bill Clinton signed legislation renaming the National Courts Building after Howard Thomas Markey. The re-dedication celebration was held on October 23, 1998, during a special joint session of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and the Court of Federal Claims.
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“Action for which I become responsible, or for which my administration becomes responsible, shall be within the law.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“If the justices would only retire when they have become burdens to the court itself, or when they recognize themselves that their faculties have become impaired, I would grieve sincerely when they passed away, and you would not feel like such a hypocrite as you do when you are going through the formality of sending telegrams of condolence and giving out interviews for propriety’s sake.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“National isolation breeds national neurosis.”
—Hubert H. Humphrey (1911–1978)
“I find it a great and fatal difference whether I court the Muse, or the Muse courts me. That is the ugly disparity between age and youth.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight.”
—Robertson Davies (b. 1913)