The Dennis Chavez Federal Building is a highrise federal office building and courthouse in downtown Albuquerque, New Mexico. It was built in 1965 to house the U.S. District Court as well as offices of various federal agencies including the U.S. Postal Service, Veterans Administration, U.S. Public Health Service, and Bureau of Indian Affairs. Originally known simply as the U.S. Courthouse and Federal Office Building, the building was renamed in honor of longtime U.S. Senator Dennis Chavez in 1976.
The Dennis Chavez Building was designed by the Albuquerque firm of Flatow, Moore, Bryan, and Fairburn, which had previously been responsible for other local highrises like the Simms Building and Bank of the West Tower. The steel-framed building is faced with polished granite, with New Mexico marble used in the ground floor lobby. It is 197 feet (60 m) in height and has 13 above-ground floors with a basement and underground parking garage. When built, it was the third-tallest building in New Mexico after the Bank of the West Tower and the Gold Building. It is currently the seventh-tallest building in Albuquerque.
The District Court relocated to the newly-built Pete V. Domenici United States Courthouse in 1998, but the U.S. Bankruptcy Court is still housed in the Dennis Chavez Building.
Famous quotes containing the words federal and/or building:
“There are always those who are willing to surrender local self-government and turn over their affairs to some national authority in exchange for a payment of money out of the Federal Treasury. Whenever they find some abuse needs correction in their neighborhood, instead of applying the remedy themselves they seek to have a tribunal sent on from Washington to discharge their duties for them, regardless of the fact that in accepting such supervision they are bartering away their freedom.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“No: until I want the protection of Massachusetts to be extended to me in some distant Southern port, where my liberty is endangered, or until I am bent solely on building up an estate at home by peaceful enterprise, I can afford to refuse allegiance to Massachusetts, and her right to my property and life. It costs me less in every sense to incur the penalty of disobedience to the State than it would to obey. I should feel as if I were worth less in that case.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)