The Bronx County Courthouse, also known as the Mario Merola Building, is an historic

courthouse A courthouse or court house is a building that is home to a local court of law and often the regional county government as well, although this is not the case in some larger cities. The term is common in North America. In most other English-spe ...

building located in the

Concourse A concourse is a place where pathways or roads meet, such as in a hotel, a convention center, a railway station, an airport terminal, a hall, or other space. The term is not limited to places where there are literally pathways or roadways or t ...

and

Melrose Melrose may refer to: Places United Kingdom * Melrose, Scottish Borders, a town in the Scottish Borders, Scotland ** Melrose Abbey, ruined monastery ** Melrose RFC, rugby club Australia * Melrose, Queensland, a locality in the South Burnett R ...

neighborhoods of

the Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. It was designed in 1931 and built between 1931 and 1934. It is a nine-story

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms w ...

building on a rusticated

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained ( phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies un ...

base in the

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unit ...

style. It has four identical sides, an interior court, and a

frieze In architecture, the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Paterae are also usually used to decorate friezes. Even when neither columns nor ...

designed by noted sculptor Charles Keck. The sculptures on the 161st Street side are by noted sculptor George Holburn Snowden. Two sculptural groups on the Walton Avenue side are by noted sculptor Joseph Kiselewski. The

Bronx Museum of the Arts The Bronx Museum of the Arts (BxMA), also called the Bronx Museum of Art or simply the Bronx Museum, is an American cultural institution located in Concourse, Bronx, New York. The museum focuses on contemporary and 20th-century works created by ...

was once located on the main floor. ''See also:'' The building stands two blocks east-southeast of

Yankee Stadium Yankee Stadium is a baseball stadium located in the Bronx, New York City. It is the home field of the New York Yankees of Major League Baseball, and New York City FC of Major League Soccer. Opened in April 2009, the stadium replaced the orig ...

, and across 161st Street from Joyce Kilmer Park. While never officially titled 'Borough Hall', the Bronx County Courthouse houses all municipal borough functions, and is listed as a borough hall on maps by the

Metropolitan Transportation Authority The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) is a public benefit corporation responsible for public transportation in the New York City metropolitan area of the U.S. state of New York. The MTA is the largest public transit authority in th ...

. The previous freestanding Bronx Borough Hall was damaged by fire and torn down in 1969, but had stopped operating in an official capacity long before this.

Murals

The first floor's Veterans Memorial Hall houses four 10 ft. by 36 ft. murals, one per wall, by James Monroe Hewlett, depicting historic events in the Bronx. The murals were unveiled in June 1934 and feature the following historical events: * The Arrival of

Jonas Bronck Jonas Bronck (alternatively Jonas Jonsson Brunk, Jonas Jonasson Bronk, or Jonas Jonassen Bronck) was born around year 1600 and died in 1643. Bronck was an immigrant to the Dutch colony of New Netherland after whom the Bronx River, and by extensio ...

– 1639, in what is now

Mott Haven Mott Haven is an American primarily residential neighborhood in the southwestern section of the New York City borough of the Bronx. Its boundaries, starting from the north and moving clockwise, are East 149th Street to the north, the Bruckner ...

. * The First Meeting of the Westchester County Court – 1764, in what is now

Westchester Square Westchester Square is a residential neighborhood geographically located in the eastern section of the New York City borough of the Bronx. Its boundaries, starting from the north and moving clockwise are: East Tremont Avenue and Silver Street, Bl ...

. * The Battle of Pell's Point – October 18, 1776, in what is now

Pelham Bay Park Pelham Bay Park is a municipal park located in the northeast corner of the New York City borough of the Bronx. It is, at , the largest public park in New York City. The park is more than three times the size of Manhattan's Central Park. The pa ...

. * The Departure of George Washington from the Van Cortlandt House – November 1783 in what is now

Van Cortlandt Park Van Cortlandt Park is a park located in the borough of the Bronx in New York City. Owned by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, it is managed with assistance from the Van Cortlandt Park Alliance. The park, the city's third-lar ...

. A

mural A mural is any piece of graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage. Word mural in art The word ''mural'' is a Spanis ...

depicting the arrival of

, considered the founder of the borough, was created in the early 1930s by James Monroe Hewlett. The mural was damaged by workers in August 2013. Many people, including the proprietor of Jonas Bronck's Beer Co and a reported descendant of Laurens Duyts, a Danish farmer who traveled to

New Amsterdam New Amsterdam ( nl, Nieuw Amsterdam, or ) was a 17th-century Dutch settlement established at the southern tip of Manhattan Island that served as the seat of the colonial government in New Netherland. The initial trading ''factory'' gave rise ...

with Bronck on his ship ''Fire of Troy'', sought the mural's restoration prior to the 100th anniversary of

's separation from

New York County Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

in 2014. It was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

in 1983.

Renaming

In February 1988, Mayor Edward Koch renamed the Bronx County Courthouse to the Mario Merola Building to honor the late

Bronx County District Attorney The Bronx County District Attorney is the elected district attorney for Bronx County, which is coterminous with the Borough of the Bronx, in New York City. The office is responsible for the prosecution of violations of New York state laws. (Federa ...

Mario Merola.

References

Government buildings in the Bronx County courthouses in New York (state) Courthouses on the National Register of Historic Places in New York City Government buildings completed in 1934 1930s architecture in the United States New York City Designated Landmarks in the Bronx Neoclassical architecture in New York City National Register of Historic Places in the Bronx Concourse, Bronx Art Deco architecture in the Bronx 1934 establishments in New York City {{Bronx-struct-stub