Columbus City Hall is the

city hall In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or a municipal building (in the Philippines), is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses ...

Columbus, Ohio Columbus () is the state capital and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Ohio. With a 2020 census population of 905,748, it is the 14th-most populous city in the U.S., the second-most populous city in the Midwest, after Chicago, an ...

, in the city's

downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business district ...

Civic Center A civic center or civic centre is a prominent land area within a community that is constructed to be its focal point or center. It usually contains one or more dominant public buildings, which may also include a government building. Recently, the ...

. It contains the offices of the city's

mayor In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilities of a mayor as well ...

, auditor, and treasurer, and the offices and chambers of

Columbus City Council The Columbus City Council is the lawmaking body of Columbus, Ohio. It has 7 members who are elected at-large. It meets in the City Council Chambers located on the second floor of Columbus City Hall. Starting in the 2023 election, City Council ...

. City Hall was designed in a Neoclassical style by the Allied Architects Association of Columbus. It replaced offices in the

Central Market Central Market may refer to: *Central Market, a 2009 album by Tyondai Braxton Fresh food markets * Adelaide Central Market, Australia * Cardiff Central Market, Wales *Central Market, Hong Kong * Central Market, Casablanca, Morocco * Riga Central ...

building as well as a former permanent city hall. The new city hall was built from 1926 to 1928, during a period of extensive construction building the city's riverfront civic center. An additional wing was added to City Hall in 1936. Renovations took place in 1949 and 1986, and the building was determined to be eligible for 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 ...

as part of a historic district in 1988.

History

Columbus's first city hall was at the

building, but it moved to a new building on

Capitol Square Capitol Square is a public square in Downtown Columbus, Ohio. The square includes the Ohio Statehouse, its Capitol Grounds, as well as the buildings and features surrounding the square. The Capitol Grounds are surrounded on the north and west ...

in 1872. In 1921, a fire destroyed that building, now the site of the

Ohio Theatre Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The ...

. James John Thomas, mayor of Columbus from 1920 to 1931, laid the cornerstone for a new City Hall on October 29, 1926. The building was dedicated on April 18, 1928. Initially built in three sections surrounding a central courtyard at a cost of US$1.7 million (), a fourth section was added on the east side of City Hall in 1936 to enclose the courtyard and provide additional office space. The structure was further renovated in 1949. City Council chambers, located on the second floor, were fully restored in 1986, and feature

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 ...

elements echoing those found throughout the building. In 1988, the building was included as a contributing property to the

Columbus Civic Center Historic District The Columbus Civic Center is a civic center, a collection of government buildings, museums, and open park space in Downtown Columbus, Ohio. The site is located along the Scioto Mile recreation area and historically was directly on the banks of t ...

, nominated to the

. The nomination was prepared in the late 1980s by the City of Columbus's Economic Development Division. The district was determined to be eligible for the National Register on September 14, 1988, due to its association with community planning, engineering, government, and transportation in the city, and for its Art Deco, Neoclassical, and Renaissance Revival architecture. Even though its suitability was confirmed, the district was never listed. The south patio of City Hall facing Broad Street was named the M. D. Portman Plaza in 1996 after a long-serving City Council member. From 1955 to 2020, the plaza was home to a tall

bronze statue Bronze is the most popular metal for cast metal sculptures; a cast bronze sculpture is often called simply "a bronze". It can be used for statues, singly or in groups, reliefs, and small statuettes and figurines, as well as bronze elements t ...

Christopher Columbus Christopher Columbus * lij, Cristoffa C(or)ombo * es, link=no, Cristóbal Colón * pt, Cristóvão Colombo * ca, Cristòfor (or ) * la, Christophorus Columbus. (; born between 25 August and 31 October 1451, died 20 May 1506) was a ...

by Italian sculptor

Edoardo Alfieri Edoardo Alfieri (1913 in Foggia, Italy – 1998 in Sanremo, Italy) was an Italian sculptor. Although he was born at Foggia in southern Italy, his family was of Piemontese origin and soon moved to Genoa, where he spent his childhood. He s ...

. The statue was a gift to the city of Columbus from the citizens of

Genoa, Italy Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian census, the Province of ...

. It was removed during the

George Floyd protests The George Floyd protests were a series of protests and civil unrest against police brutality and racism that began in Minneapolis on May 26, 2020, and largely took place during 2020. The civil unrest and protests began as part of internat ...

in the city and will be placed in a less controversial location.

Attributes

The five-story building, constructed of Indiana limestone, was designed by the Allied Architects Association of Columbus in the Neoclassical style. Allied Architects also designed the adjacent Central Police Station building at West Gay Street and Marconi Boulevard, which opened on March 26, 1930, was vacated in 1991 with the opening of a new police headquarters building, and was renovated in 2012 as 77 North Front Street to allow the consolidation of various city government offices. City Hall was originally also the venue for the city's Municipal Court, and its proximity to the Police Station building provided for efficient movement of prisoners between the two buildings. The former third-floor municipal courtroom in City Hall now serves as a studio for the city's cable-carried government information TV channel. Columbus City Hall is one of the buildings contained within the

, nominated to the

in 1988.

Gallery

File:Columbus City Hall and trolley bus.jpg, City Hall's plaza c. 1940s File:Columbus, Ohio - Highsmith 04.jpg, The Portman Plaza in 2016, including the Statue of Christopher Columbus File:Columbus City Hall 01.jpg, Main entrance and east plaza of Columbus City Hall on Front Street File:Columbus City Hall COGO Station FE March 2021.jpg, Columbus City Hall and

LeVeque Tower The LeVeque Tower is a 47-story skyscraper in Downtown Columbus, Ohio. At it was the tallest building in the city from its completion in 1927 to 1974, and remains the second-tallest today. Designed by C. Howard Crane, the Art Deco skyscraper ...

from the

CoGo CoGo Bike Share is a public bicycle sharing system serving Columbus, Ohio and its suburbs. The service is operated by the bikeshare company Motivate (part of Lyft, Inc.) It was created in July 2013 with 300 bikes and 30 docking stations, since ...

bikeshare station on Marconi Boulevard

References

External links

* {{Columbus, Ohio 1928 establishments in Ohio City and town halls in Ohio Buildings in downtown Columbus, Ohio Government buildings in Columbus, Ohio Broad Street (Columbus, Ohio)

History

Attributes

Gallery

See also

References

Further reading

External links