Manhattan Municipal Building (New York City, New York)

 office building, administrative building, skyscraper, Neoclassical (architecture), municipal, local government, movie / film / TV location, 1914_construction

580-foot, 41-story Neo-Classical office building completed in 1914. Designed by McKim, Mead & White, and William Mitchell Kendall, the Municipal Building is at the intersection of Chambers and Centre Streets, east of City Hall Park and just north of the Manhattan entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge. It is among the largest government office buildings in the world, housing over 2,000 employees from a dozen municipal agencies in nearly 1 million square feet of office space. It was the first to incorporate a subway station – the Chambers Street station, served by the J Z trains – into its base. The subway station entrance at the south end of the building is covered by an arcaded plaza notable for its dramatic vaults of Guastavino tile construction. The north side also had a mirrored station but it was enclosed for additional office space, retaining the vaults as well. There are 25 floors of work space served by 33 elevators, with an additional 15 stories in the tower.

A major feature in the design is an open plaza, screened by Corinthian columns, that appears to be carved out of the first three stories of the granite-clad structure. The plaza flows into a central triumphal arch, inspired by the Arch of Constantine. So grand is the arch that automobile traffic flowed through it before Chambers Street traffic patterns were altered. Today, the barrel-vaulted passageway is open to foot traffic. Emblems of municipal departments adorn panels between the second floor windows. Above the base, the U-shaped main shaft is divided into bays of simple, recessed single and paired windows. The top facade forms a colonnade of Corinthian columns and pilasters. On the top, above the middle section of the building, there are three tiered drums on top of another, flanked by four smaller pinnacle turrets, surmounted by a central "wedding-cake" tower of spires, colonnades, obelisks, and a crowning statue.

The statue named "Civic Fame" on top of the Municipal Building, installed in March 1913, is a gilded figure designed by Adolph A. Weinman. At 25 feet tall, it is the third largest statue in all of Manhattan. Constructed of sheets of copper with a hollow core, this female figure stands barefoot on a sphere and wears a flowing dress and a crown of laurels to signify glory. In her left hand she holds out a five-pointed crown representing the five boroughs (Manhattan, Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens and Staten Island). Weinman also sculpted the allegorical bas-relief panels at the base of the building.

The building houses the offices of three elected officials – the City Comptroller, the Public Advocate, and the Manhattan Borough President - and is the headquarters of the Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS), which manages this and all other prominent City buildings. Also housed in the building are the Department of Finance, the Tax Commission, the Civil Service Commission, the Landmarks Preservation Commission, and the Office of Payroll Administration. Field units of the Office of the Mayor, the Department of Buildings, the Department of Environmental Protection, and the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications are also located here. Until 2009, when the Manhattan Marriage Bureau moved to another city building at 80 Centre Street, 18,000 people were married in its second floor chapel each year.

The Municipal Building underwent a complete restoration of its exterior masonry in 1999, which entailed a the replacement of the badly corroded metal pins which hold the granite cladding in place. This government building was used in several movies. It doubled as the City Hall "Loading Dock" in Ghostbusters, and was also seen in Cop Land and The Jerky Boys. Occupying a storefront on the ground level is CityStore, the Official Store of the City of New York, which sells books, gifts, collectables and souvenirs of New York City.

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