The Manhattan Municipal Building sits adjacent to City Hall and is home to thirteen New York City agencies. Completed in 1914, the Municipal building was designed to consolidate a number of expanding city agencies which rented offices throughout Manhattan. The building blends Roman, Italian Renaissance, and Classical styles of architecture and has inspired the construction of other buildings in its likeness. In fact, Moscow University is noticeably built in the style of the Municipal Building, perhaps because Josef Stalin was impressed by it.
One of the interesting features of the Municipal Building is the subway station built into its base; in fact, the building was the first in New York to do this. The experience of walking up from the subway station and looking up into the building’s arching tile ceilings, in the style developed by Rafael Gustavino, lends the building a significant presence. Once inside, those unfamiliar with the building can find it disorienting. The first time I went inside, I had to go through a security check but I did not have to state why I was there, which I found surprising. Of course, it is a city building, so it should be open to the public. In any case, once I was passed security I was on my own in the building, clueless as to where to go. There were a number of elevators, all rather small on the inside, a sign of the building’s age. In spite of the building’s arguably old-fashioned interior design, the fact that it serves as the base of thirteen city agencies speaks to its ability to adapt to a rapidly modernizing New York City.
I love that you chose this building! And I like what you wrote about it. I’ll add something that has been on my mind since I just read a post by a student about Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn. One of the funny things about the municipal building is that it blocks Chambers street – it almost straddles the street like a schoolyard bully, daring you to pass. The building goes back to the “City Beautiful” school of planning and architecture. Their philosophy was that you should use city spaces to force people to look at beautiful monuments and buildings. This will, in turn, result in increased happiness, spiritual uplift, and solidarity among a city’s residents. So in this case, they built the building right at the end of one of the most important streets in the city in order to force everyone to look at it and witness this visual symbol of the financial, political and legal power of the city. The arch in Washington Square Park is from the same era and served the same purpose, as did the arches at the end of Canal before the Manhattan bridge and in Brooklyn, at Grand Army Plaza. Great post – I can see those towering spaces in my mind when you come out of the station. The building is still, after all these years, intimidating and disorienting and awesome.