Louis J. Lefkowitz Building

USA / New Jersey / Hoboken / Centre Street, 80
 office building, administrative building, Art Deco (architecture), local government
9-story Art-Deco office building completed in 1930. Designed by William Haugaard with structural elements by the Guastavino Fireproof Tile Co., it is clad in grey Maine granite and was re-named after Louis J. Lefkowitz, who was New York State's longest serving Attorney General, in 1984. It was turned over to New York City in 2002. The Lefkowitz Building is adjacent to Foley Square and is bounded by Worth, Centre, and Baxter Streets and Hogan Place.

The 2-story base has a double-height main entrance in the center of the Centre Street facade, with a stone enframement, and brass doors below a brass-framed decorative metal grille with an octagonal brass seal in the middle. At the top of the enframement is spelled out "THE LOUIS J. LEFKOWITZ STATE OFFICE BUILDING". The entrance is flanked by a pair of narrow bays with decorative interlocking stone cutout patterns below a pair of carved seals. In front of these bays, a set of steps leading up to the entry is flanked by metal pillarss topped by Art-Deco light fixtures, set on stone bases. On either side of the narrow bays framing the entrance are a pair of double-height openings with metal window framing and spandrels, and a narrow outer bay, also with metal infill. A band course capping the base is decorated with carved figures including eagles, and inscription over the entrance reading "STATE OF NEW YORK".

Above, the 3rd-6th floors are divided into nine equal bays by wide fluted piers ornamented by three simple circles at their capitals. The bays have red-colored metal mullions and black metal spandrels with a pair of decorative red circles in each one. Numerous window-mounted air-conditioning units dot the facade. The 7th floor is set off by a narrow cornice and has one small, square windows in each bay. This floor is surmounted by a broad stone cornice and frieze decorated with alternating lion heads and seashells below a carved foliate pattern on the slightly-recessed 8th floor. The penthouse level is further recessed.

The south elevation is similar to the Centre Street facade, only much longer with 22 bays. Instead of a central entrance, there is one at end end, with the same design as that on Centre Street, including the flanking seals and light pillars. At Baxter Street, there is a short, 3-bay facade and an angled elevation that spans seven bays, with a small freight entrance at the ground level of the second-from-the-north bay. The north elevation on Hogan Place has 17 bays, with a central entrance. This entrance lacks the seals and light pillars seen at the other entrances, but instead has a pair of wall sconces. The Centre Street lobby is decorated in an elaborate Art-Deco Egyptian design. The building also has two interior light courts.

There is a restricted, authorized personnel only entrance at 10 Hogan Place (located at the freight entrance), immediately opposite the entrance to the Main Office of the District Attorney for New York County (Manhattan), at No.1 Hogan Place. Today many offices of the New York County DA are housed here. Additionally it houses offices of various court officials and now also the Office of the New York City Clerk and the Manhattan Marriage Bureau who moved here in 2009 from the Manhattan Municipal Building. The Office of the City Clerk is one of the oldest offices in New York City government with beginnings traceable to the inception of the Town of New Amsterdam.

The original role of the Clerk was to record the proceedings of the Town's legislative body and attest to and affix the Town Seal on official documents of the municipality. The office remained during the time that New Amsterdam became New York under British rule and after the War of Independence and the establishment of the United States of America. The Clerk’s Office is reached through a separate entrance at 141 Worth Street.

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clio.columbia.edu/catalog/3464206
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Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Lefkowitz
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Coordinates:   40°42'54"N   74°0'4"W

Comments

  • Believe this building is represented as the NYCPD head office housing the Commissioner's office in the Blue Blood TV olive serial???
  • My typo olive should read office.
  • No, Blue Bloods uses it as the DA's Office (Erin Reagan's office).
  • Does anyone know who manufactured the interior brown wall office partitions of the building, which we frequently see in Law and Order camera shots?
This article was last modified 1 year ago