Adam Clayton Powell State Office Building

 office building, high-rise, state government, Modern (architecture)

The Adam Clayton Powell Jr. State Office Building (originally the Harlem State Office Building) is a nineteen story high-rise office building designed c. 1967 by the African American-led architecture firm of Ifill, Johnson & Hanchard. It is named after Adam Clayton Powell Jr., the first African-American elected to Congress. It is the tallest building in Harlem.

The design of the facade is supposedly based on an African mask, but done in a Brutalist style. The 19-story building sits on and is cantilevered over an extensive public plaza. The structure rises up on structural concrete and granite columns that are splayed at their base where they meet the plaza and frame the glass curtain wall of the office tower. On the narrower 125th and 126th Street facades, the upper floors extend out above the lower ones, giving the building additional texture and variation. The structure for better or worse remains a Harlem landmark today and is one of the most significant Modern designs in the neighborhood.

The building was completed in 1974 and was known as the Harlem State Office Building. While the initial occupancy of the building was criticized for lacking basic requirements such as a building manager and fire equipment, eventually things settled down to the point that in 1978 the location hosted Harlem's first giant Christmas tree. In 1983 the building was renamed the Adam Clayton Powell Jr. State Office Building after the former U.S. Representative, the Rev. Adam Clayton Powell Jr., who had died in 1972.

In 1994, the building was threatened with closure due to budget cuts; however, it remained open.