Architecture
The building was designed by Minnesotan Cass Gilbert, who later designed the Woolworth Building, which is visible from the building's front steps. The selection of Gilbert to design the building was marked with controversy. Until 1893 federal office buildings were designed by government architects under the Office of the Supervising Architect of the United States Department of the Treasury. In 1893 the Tarsney Act permitted the Supervising Architect to hire private architects following a competition. The Supervising Architect James Knox Taylor picked Gilbert who earlier had been his partner at the Gilbert & Taylor architect firm in St. Paul, Minnesota. The scandal never quite blew over and in 1913 the Act was repealed.
It was constructed between 1902 and 1907. It is a masterpiece of the Beaux-Arts style, where public transactions were conducted under a noble Roman dome. It incorporates Beaux Arts and City Beautiful movement planning principles, combining architecture, engineering, and fine arts. Lavish sculptures, paintings, and decorations by well-known artists of the time, such as Daniel Chester French (the seated groups of the Four Continents on the front steps), Louis St. Gaudens and Albert Jaegers, embellish the facade, the two-story entry portico, the main hall parallel to the facade, the Rotunda, and the Collector's Reception Room. Sculpture was so crucial to the scheme that the figure groups had independent contracts. Above the main cornice are standing sculptures representing the great seafaring nations, representing American seagoing commerce as the modern heir of the Phoenicians. In 1936, during the Great Depression, the Works Projects Administration commissioned murals for the main rotunda from Reginald Marsh (illustration, right).
The building sits on the site of Fort Amsterdam, the fortification constructed by the Dutch West India Company to defend their operations in the Hudson Valley. The fort became the nucleus of the New Amsterdam settlement, and in turn, of New York City.
Read more about this topic: Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House
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