Building
The two-story brick building is seven bays square on a raised basement of randomly coursed stone. The facade is trimmed in terra cotta and stone. The former is used for the window lintels and sills as well as an intermediate cornice; the latter for the water table. It is topped with a shallow hipped roof that has some of its original metal sheathing.
At the second story of the front facade, there is a balustraded projecting portico three bays wide with freestanding engaged Ionic columns and Doric pilasters supporting a full entablature with denticulated pediment. It is in turn topped with a three-stage wooden clock tower with round-arched louvered openings, paired Corinthian columns supporting block entablatures and paired scroll brackets. The very top of Town Hall is the clock tower's domed roof. This feature has made the clock tower one of Irvington's most recognizable local landmarks.
The main entrance uses an arched Gibbs-style surround. The building's trim materials show up in the form of solid stone balustrades that curl to form newel posts at the sidewalk, and terra cotta quoins. The rear facade is less detailed, with terra cotta used only for the coping of the stepped cornice; stone and brick are used everywhere else.
Much of the interior is in paneled dark wood, with wainscoting in some rooms. In the library, the dark wood is used for ceiling beams with famous literary quotations inscribed in gold leaf. It is lit by chandeliers and lanterns designed by Tiffany. Its plaster walls give way to a domed ceiling and display niches in the main area, with some open areas featuring decorative corbels.
The theater features a complete orchestra and balcony section, with the private booths featuring round openings separated by Doric posts with Adamesque detail. The proscenium arch also includes heavy classical detailing.
Read more about this topic: Irvington Town Hall
Famous quotes containing the word building:
“It would be naive to think that peace and justice can be achieved easily. No set of rules or study of history will automatically resolve the problems.... However, with faith and perseverance,... complex problems in the past have been resolved in our search for justice and peace. They can be resolved in the future, provided, of course, that we can think of five new ways to measure the height of a tall building by using a barometer.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“Nowadays almost all man’s improvements, so called, as the building of houses and the cutting down of the forest and of all large trees, simply deform the landscape, and make it more and more tame and cheap.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Culture is a sham if it is only a sort of Gothic front put on an iron building—like Tower Bridge—or a classical front put on a steel frame—like the Daily Telegraph building in Fleet Street. Culture, if it is to be a real thing and a holy thing, must be the product of what we actually do for a living—not something added, like sugar on a pill.”
—Eric Gill (1882–1940)