City - NY - Jefferson Market Court House 1905

by Mike Savad

Title

City - NY - Jefferson Market Court House 1905

Artist

Mike Savad

Medium

Photograph - Colorized Photo

Description

Colorized photo from 1905
Original title: Jefferson Market Court House
Photographer: Detroit Publishing
Location: 425 Avenue of the Americas (Sixth Avenue)

Located in the heart of Greenwich Village, NY, this amazing, wonderfully out of place building was built in 1875-1877, in a Venetian Gothic style. It featured deeply sloped roofs, gables, and pinnacles. It has a castle like appearance and doesn't match anything in the area as you can see. Directly behind this, where the garden is today, there was also a prison, and apparently a market place of some kind.

This spot originally had a saloon with a police station above it. Next door there was a 100ft fire tower, with a bell on it, the amount of rings indicated where the fire was. But the tower burned down ironically. In it's place the city built this structure at the cost of $360,000 (which is about $9 million in today's money). In 1885, it was named one of the ten most beautiful buildings in the America, it came in at 5th place.

Inside the building is a tall spiral staircase, it has a clock, and it may still have served as a fire tower.

But it's main purpose was that it was built as a courthouse, and was used for that until 1945. Then it became a Police Academy, but only till 1958 when the building was vacated. After that they wanted to demolish the building as it was in need of repair, but people protested and they ended up keeping it. In 1961 the preserved it and turned it into a library (which it still is today).

What was once the civil court on the second floor is now the Adult Reading Room. The first floor Children's Room was one the police court. They also repaired the clock and electrified it. It's a very attractive building complete with detailed stained glass windows. It's really an over the top spot for a library.

If you look carefully, you'll see laundry on roof tops, along with chairs. Oh and it was called Jefferson Market because at the time that is what this area was called.

Uploaded

April 6th, 2021

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