Bridgeton, New Jersey

City Hall was constructed in 1932. The building features Neo-Georgian symmetry and detailing with Classical embellishments.

Providence, Rhode Island

In the 1870s it was popular among American town governments to construct civic buildings in the French Empire style, emanating Napoleon III’s makeover of Paris in the style of Louis XIV. It was also popular a half-century later to start tearing down the old 19th century city halls in favor of more classical designs. One that survived was the Providence City Hall and after it evaded a planned demolition at mid-century, it even received a meticulous restoration and looks much as it did when it was completed to the plans of Boston architect Samuel J.F. Thayer in 1878 - right down to the original color scheme of olive green, maroon and tan.

Winnsboro, South Carolina

In 1785, the General Assembly of South Carolina authorized the establishment of a public market at this spot. The market was a square, wooden building, painted yellow, and was topped with a belfry. In the 1820s Robert Cathcart bought the building and also donated to the town his old duck pond and a small piece of land in the middle of Washington Street as part of the deal. Here was constructed a narrow building modeled after Independence Hall in Philadelphia. The works for the town clock were ordered from Alsace, France and the town promotes it as the longest-running clock in America. The town bell was also cast in France and did good service until 1895; during a fire that year two young men were ringing it so vigorously that it cracked and was sent to Philadelphia to J. McShane for repairs. When after some delay it was returned and sounded for the first time, the tone was so different from the old tone that doubt was expressed immediately as to its being the original bell. The first floor is now used as meeting space for the town’s various organizations and as a voting location. The second floor of the Town Clock is home to the Fairfield County Chamber of Commerce.

Marblehead, Massachusetts

The stylish Town House was constructed in 1727 to serve as both the town hall (upstairs) and a market  (downstairs). It is highly decorated with fashionable corner quoins, dentil blocks along the roofline and a distinguished entrance. It is one of the oldest municipal buildings still in use in the United States.

Elkton, Maryland

 

The first Cecil County courthouse in Elkton was completed in 1792. A one-story brick addition was later constructed to house the Register of Wills, the Clerk of Court and the Sheriff. By the eighteen-eighties, additional space was needed, but the building was hemmed in on every side. The county commissioners had to decide whether to tear down the structure and rebuild or add a third story. The courthouse was enlarged by removing the hipped roof. A mansard third story was added, and a tower was built in front of the building. The tower contained the entrance, a small balcony, a clock, and a semi-onion dome. The tower was topped with a weathervane in the shape of a fish.  The courthouse soon became crowded and an effort was made to replace it. In 1935 an act was passed authorizing the county commissioners to spend $5,000 for property on which to build a new courthouse. The site chosen was about 200 yards from the old courthouse. Cornerstone ceremonies took place in May 1939 and building began shortly thereafter. The new courthouse building officially opened on July 26, 1940.

Altoona, Pennsylvania

The first building on this site was erected for the Vigilant Steam Fire Engine Company in 1870, two years after Altoona was chartered as a city.  Funds for construction were raised through private subscriptions and contributions from members of the company. The engine house’s 75-foot corner tower, which served as a hose lookout, was a landmark on the late nineteenth-century skyline.

When the building was razed in 1925 to make way for this Beaux Arts city hall, the o!d clock and the bell, which for years sounded the general fire alarm, were donated to the Blair County Historical Society, where they remain today.

Construction of the new city hall commenced with a ground-breaking ceremony on June 22, 1925, and the building was occupied on November 11, 1927. Altoona architects Frederic Shollar and Frank Hersh designed the building with a Rockport gray granite foundation, a rusticated Indiana limestone first floor and Flemish bond buff brick on the second and third floors. However, to cut expenses, they decided to continue incorporating the various municipal functions under one roof, in contrast with the nationwide trend toward more specialized structures for each branch of local government. To this day, the police department, jail, courts, city treasurer, and mayor share the building.

When it comes to the selection of the county courthouse, in Fairfield County money talks and less money walks. There was much debate accompanying the placing of the Fairfield County Courthouse in Bridgeport. Fairfield was the site of the first county seat and there, in 1720, the colonists erected the first courthouse--a wooden structure that was burned by the British during the Revolutionary War. It was rebuilt in 1794. But by the mid-1800s, with the burgeoning industrial and population growth of neighboring Bridgeport made it the obvious choice to host the replacement of the overwhelmed Fairfield facility. Obvious, except to the folks in Norwalk. Bridgeport offered to pay $75,000 to build a courthouse and jail, ending the brouhaha. The sandstone building was designed by Alexander Jackson Davis in the Greek Revival-style, which resembles a temple. The building had two main floors for court and county government, a large ground floor for use as City Hall and a large gathering space, Washington Hall, for public meetings.

Today it is known as McLevy Hall, named for popular former 24-year Socialist mayor Jasper McLevy, for whom the green the Ionic-columned building fronts. it is remembered today as the location where a little-known Republican candidate for President delivered a two-hour impassioned political speech against slavery on March 10, 1860. Abraham Lincoln, however, probably best remembered Bridgeport as the place where he enjoyed his first plate of New England fried oysters.

Paterson, New Jersey

The New York architectural firm of Carrere and Hastings, designers of the New York Public Library, many buildings in Washington, D.C. and leading practitioners of the Beaux Arts style in America, won the design competition over eleven other architects for Paterson City Hall in 1892. The magnificent 164-foot central clock tower, adorned with sculpted wreaths, eagles, urns and shields, is a a reproduction of the city hall in Lyon, the silk center of France. When it was dedicated on July 6, 1896 it was acclaimed as the finest public building in the state. It was contemplated as a memorial to the Centennial of the City and two large windows on the Ellison street elevation were created to honor John Ryle, the “Father of the Silk Industry” and a city mayor, and John J. Brown, financial wizard and first Mayor of Paterson. When it was planned $200,000 was set aside for the new City Hall; the final tab came in at $530,971.80 - unfurnished.

Newburyport, Massachusetts

In 1804 Newburyport’s coffers were bursting with shipping money and it was no problem to lure America’s first celebrity architect, Charles Bulfinch, to design a courthouse. Bulfinch had the job done by 1805 and the building has served as a courthouse ever since - the oldest regularly operating courthouse in the United States. Unfortunately Charles Bulfinch would have a hard time recognizing his work here. He provided the courthouse with an open arcade of graceful arches across the front and a central gable on the roof. Both were eliminated in 1853 when the town sold the courthouse to the county. Actually, you can get a better feel for Bulfinch’s hand by walking around to the back and viewing the elevation overlooking the Frog Pond. The area around the Frog Pond has been used as a town common since the 1600s. The promenade known as the Bartlet Mall was created in 1800 through the efforts of Captain Edmund Bartlet by filling in a ravine. The bombshell on display in the front of the building was brought back from the Siege of Louisburg in 1759 during the French and Indian War.

Cumberland, Maryland

Although many church spires dot the Cumberland landscape, it is the Allegany County Courthouse that dominates this city’s skyline. Historically, courthouses in America have been the most architecturally impressive buildings within a community, the better to convey the authority of a local government, as well as to instill respect and recognition.

Designed in 1893, the Courthouse was the first major commission of Wright Butler who based his design for this public building on the Richardsonian Romanesque architectural style. The massing and detail of the Courthouse are typical of this late 19th-century style, developed from the works of architect Henry Hobson Richardson. Characteristic of this style, the Courthouse combines the use of brick highlighted with stone belt courses and presents a uniform rock-faced exterior finish. The building’s ribbons of windows set deeply into the walls, and large arched entry are also typical Richardsonian features. Less typical is the Courthouse’s tower buttressed with round columns that rises above the three-story building.

Aiken, South Carolina

Constructed in 1881 on a lot originally known as ‘The Courthouse Square,’ the building was of red brick. In 1934, architect Willis Irvin prepared plans for remodeling, at which time the cupola was changed to house the town clock, a weathervane was placed on the pinnacle, and the exterior was stuccoed. Original doors and brass locks are still in use in the main building which was extensively renovated in 1987 when an addition was built.

Honesdale, Pennsylvania

Built in 1893, this Romanesque Revival brick-and-stone building once sported brick and stone cupolas atop the building’s two towers but they were removed because of maintenance issues. Originally there were. These cupolas have long since been removed. Above the main entrance are a large arch and a balcony that runs between the two towers. Years ago local dignitaries used the balcony to make their public speeches. For many years the building was also the home to the Protection Engine No. 3 Fire Company.

Hartford, Connecticut

The mandate for the designers of Hartford’s new City Hall in 1915 was to create a building that essentially resembled the Old State House, from where the government was moving. The round-arched windows and balustrades were recreated in brick and faced with white Bethel granite in a Beaux Arts style. The roof is fashioned from copper and tile; all of the entrances are bronze. The inquisitive-looking stone lions on the south side of the building on Arch Street have been residents of Hartford since 1827. They first home was on the roof of the Phoenix Bank at 803 Main Street. The Phoenix Bank was chartered in July 1814 and was the first non-Congregational Church-owned and -operated bank in the state. They were moved to the sidewalk in front of the bank but were hassled by a city inspector in 1918 who claimed the lions were an impediment to traffic and ordered their removal. The bank offered them to the city with the proviso that they be treated with respect and in 1922 the duo was installed at City Hall.

New York City, New York

The consolidation of the five boroughs into Greater New York in 1898 created the need for an impressive and suitably-sized headquarters for the city government. Between 1907 and 1908 the city sponsored an architectural competition for a large office building to consolidate various agencies. Urged by Mayor McClelland to enter, the fabled firm of McKim, Mead & White won with a proposal for a classically detailed skyscraper. The Municipal Building was the firm’s first skyscraper. The building design used the Roman, Italian Renaissance and Classical styles.

Designed by a partner William Mitchell Kendall, the U-shaped structure was adroitly placed on an irregular site adjacent to the ramps of the Brooklyn Bridge and criss-crossed underground by transit connections. Completed in 1913, the 25-story block is surmounted by a central “wedding-cake” tower of spires, colonnades, and obelisks. The central tower is surmounted by the heroic figure of Adolph Weinman’s “Civic Fame” in copper, 20 feet high, poised on a large copper ball.

Various types of sculpture and relief cover portions of the Municipal Building. The central arch is decorated with sculpture in the Roman manner as was used in the Arch of Constantine. Over the side arches are rectangular allegorical panels. At the left (north), Civic Duty is represented by a woman personifying the City, accompanied by a child holding the seal of the city. On the right of the arch (south), Civic Pride shows the female personification of the city receiving tribute from her citizens.

The Municipal Building underwent a complete restoration of its exterior masonry in 1999, which entailed a the replacement of the badly corroded metal pins which hold the granite cladding in place.

Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania

When it appeared on the Wilkes Barre streetscape in 1893, City Hall presented a dramatic blend of architectural styles: a redstone Romanesque base; Victorian banded brick and terra cotta upper floors with gargoyles and balconies; and Queen Anne towers and gables at the roofline. William W. Neuer and Benjamin Davey, Jr designed Wilkes-Barre’s first municipal building. The towers and gables are gone and the only High Victorian souvenir remaining from that time is a stained glass window of the city seal over the front door. The honeybees illustrated in the seal are emblematic of the city’s nineteenth-century boast that it was “busy as a beehive.”

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Henry Hobson Richardson, of Brookline, Massachusetts, was the most famous architect of the 19th century. After the city’s Greek Revival courthouse burned in 1882, Richardson won a design competition to create a replacement. Richardson would die, prematurely, in 1886 at the of 47, two years before the Courthouse was finished. On his deathbed he is reported to have said: “If they honor me for the pigmy things I have already done, what will they say when they see Pittsburgh finished.”

It is indeed among America’s most imitated buildings; many architectural historians regard it as the finest public building in the United States. It was no less important to the City of Pittsburgh. When Richardson came to town there were no monumental buildings in downtown Pittsburgh. In fact, there was no real downtown Pittsburgh, only street after street of sprawling industry. Richardson’s courthouse was designed to tower over the city, providing an anchor for a defined streetscape. With a model of great architecture on a grand scale suddenly placed in their midst, Pittsburgh’s titans of industry were eager to emulate its designs for their new commercial palaces that soon lined Grant Street.

Richardson, who had studied in Paris, was inspired by the 11th- and 12th-century castles of France and Spain. His intimidating design for Allegheny Courthouse included great, round-arched door and window openings. Some things have been compromised in its 125 years (the towering Frick Building across the street eliminated its position as centurion of the city) but most of its impact remains as awe-inspiring as the master architect intended it. A self-guided walking tour brochure for the courthouse and jail is available inside.