This picture was taken to show the Municipal Building, nearing the end of construction in 1913 or 1914, but it also shows a decent swath of the north end of City Hall Park. Counter-clockwise from the lower right corner:
- City Hall, 1811.
- The elevated terminal at the end of the Brooklyn Bridge, 1883.
- The Municpal Building, to be completed in 1914.
- The Surrogate’s Court / Hall of Records, 1907.
- A small commercial building housing. hardware store, 1860s.
- The high-rise Emigrant Savings Bank, 1912.
- The New York County Courthouse (AKA the Tweed Courthouse), 1881 (final completion).
In the middle of that loop is a much plainer building, between the Tweed Courthouse and the Municipal Building. That’s the City Courthouse, completed in 1852 and with an additional story put on in 1904, and which was demolished in 1928.
If we exclude the City Courthouse, we have a group of buildings spanning more than 100 years and designed in a number of different architectural styles, but which work reasonably well together. One could argue that it’s a very New York type of architectural harmony: the heights, styles, and structural systems are all different, but as long as you’re not looking for uniformity, the total effect is okay.
