History
In 1834, the year Brooklyn was granted its city charter, the land for Brooklyn's city hall was donated by the Remsen and Pierrepont families, whose names are commemorated in the names of Brooklyn's Remsen and Pierrepont Streets. The following year, New York architect Calvin Pollard won the commission to design the building in a contest held by the city. The foundations were dug and the cornerstone laid for this structure in 1836. Unfortunately, financial hardship halted construction entirely.
When funds again became available in 1845 construction resumed, this time of a structure designed by Gamaliel King, who had come in second to Pollard in the city's design competition, with instructions from the city that the new building must fit inside the already laid foundation. King preserved many elements of Pollard's original design and intent, including its Greek Revival style, although the project was scaled down in size somewhat. Construction was completed in 1848.
On February 26, 1895, waste paper caught fire and destroyed the cupola and top floors of the building, and water damage ruined the walls and ceiling of the Common Council chamber. Three years later, a new Victorian cast-iron cupola was built, designed by Vincent C. Griffith and the firm of Stoughton and Stoughton, on which was placed a flag. In 1898, the city of Brooklyn was consolidated into the five boroughs of New York City, and this building ceased being "City Hall" and became "Borough Hall". In 1902, the Common Council room was demolished to build a new courtroom, designed in the Beaux-Arts style by Brooklyn architect Axel Hedman.
In the 1930s, proposals began to circulate about knocking down Borough Hall, based on the arguments that it no longer performed any government function, that its architecture wasn't particularly notable, and that it was a monument to an extremely brief era in Brooklyn's history. While numerous proposals were put forth, the building survived. In 1966, the building was finally designated a landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission.
The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 10, 1980. In the 1980s, the building underwent a massive renovation under the supervision of Conklin & Rossant. The original copper shingling on the cupola was restored by Les metalliers Champenois, the same metalworks involved in the restoration of the Statue of Liberty, and the flag on the cupola was replaced by a figure of Lady Justice. The renovation was completed in 1989.
The Kings County Courthouse was built in 1868, turning this area – now known as Downtown Brooklyn – into a government center and busy area of commerce. In the 1940s, the Kings County Courthouse and other nearby buildings to the north were replaced by a complex of courthouses and a plaza in front of Borough Hall. A mall connects the building to Cadman Plaza Park.
Read more about this topic: Brooklyn Borough Hall
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“A poet’s object is not to tell what actually happened but what could or would happen either probably or inevitably.... For this reason poetry is something more scientific and serious than history, because poetry tends to give general truths while history gives particular facts.”
—Aristotle (384–323 B.C.)
“In history an additional result is commonly produced by human actions beyond that which they aim at and obtain—that which they immediately recognize and desire. They gratify their own interest; but something further is thereby accomplished, latent in the actions in question, though not present to their consciousness, and not included in their design.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“The History of the world is not the theatre of happiness. Periods of happiness are blank pages in it, for they are periods of harmony—periods when the antithesis is in abeyance.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)