The New York State Supreme Court Building, originally known as the New York County Courthouse, at 60 Centre Street on

Foley Square Foley Square, also called Federal Plaza, is a street intersection in the Civic Center neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City, which contains a small triangular park named Thomas Paine Park. The space is bordered by Worth Street to th ...

in the

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 ...

neighborhood of

Manhattan 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 ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, houses the Civil and Appellate Terms of the

New York State Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the State of New York is the trial-level court of general jurisdiction in the New York State Unified Court System. (Its Appellate Division is also the highest intermediate appellate court.) It is vested with unlimited civ ...

for the state's First Judicial District, which is coextensive with Manhattan, as well as the offices of the New York County Clerk. The granite-faced hexagonal building was designed by

Guy Lowell Guy Lowell (August 6, 1870 – February 4, 1927), was an American architect and landscape architect. Biography Born in Boston, Lowell was the son of Mary Walcott (Goodrich) and Edward Jackson Lowell, and a member of Boston's well-known Lowe ...

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

in classical Roman style and was built between 1913 and 1927, completion having been delayed by

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. It replaced the former New York County Courthouse on Chambers Street, popularly known as the

Tweed Courthouse The Tweed Courthouse (also known as the Old New York County Courthouse) is a historic courthouse building at 52 Chambers Street in the Civic Center of Manhattan in New York City. It was built in the Italianate style with Romanesque Revi ...

. Both the interior and exterior are New York City Landmarks: the exterior was designated on February 1, 1966 and the interior on March 24, 1981.

Site

The building is somewhat of an older sibling to

Cass Gilbert Cass Gilbert (November 24, 1859 – May 17, 1934) was an American architect. An early proponent of skyscrapers, his works include the Woolworth Building, the United States Supreme Court building, the state capitols of Minnesota, Arkansas and ...

's 1936 Corinthian-columned

Foley Square Courthouse The Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse (originally the United States Courthouse or the Foley Square Courthouse) is a 37-story courthouse at 40 Centre Street on Foley Square in the Civic Center neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York ...

(renamed the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse in 2001) just to its south, which also faces Foley Square from the east. Both buildings face Federal Plaza across the square, which includes the more modern Jacob K. Javits Federal Building and James L. Watson Court of International Trade Building, which houses the U.S. Court of International Trade. Other court buildings are nearby, including those for

New York City Criminal Court The Criminal Court of the City of New York is a court of the State Unified Court System in New York City that handles misdemeanors (generally, crimes punishable by fine or imprisonment of up to one year) and lesser offenses, and also conducts a ...

New York City Civil Court The Civil Court of the City of New York is a civil court of the New York State Unified Court System in New York City that decides lawsuits involving claims for damages up to $25,000 and includes a small claims part (small claims court) for cases i ...

, and the

Surrogate's Courthouse The Surrogate's Courthouse (also the Hall of Records and 31 Chambers Street) is a historic building at the northwest corner of Chambers and Centre Streets in the Civic Center of Manhattan in New York City. Completed in 1907, it was desi ...

Architecture

Exterior

The building's mass and scale give it the appearance of a temple. A broad set of steps sweeps up from Foley Square to a massive Corinthian colonnade covering most of the front of the courthouse, topped by an elaborate 140-foot-long (43 m) triangular pediment of thirteen figures carved in bas relief from granite. The

pediment Pediments are gables, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the lintel, or entablature, if supported by columns. Pediments can contain an overdoor and are usually topped by hood moulds. A pedim ...

and acroteria by

Frederick Warren Allen Frederick Warren Allen (1888–1961) was an American sculptor of the Boston School. One of the most prominent sculptors in Boston during the early 20th century and a master teacher at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Allen had a career in ...

include three statues: ''Law'', ''Truth'', and ''Equity''. A frieze bears the inscription "The true administration of justice is the firmest pillar of good government", a quotation taken from a letter written by

George Washington George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of ...

to Attorney General

Edmund Randolph Edmund Jennings Randolph (August 10, 1753 September 12, 1813) was a Founding Father of the United States, attorney, and the 7th Governor of Virginia. As a delegate from Virginia, he attended the Constitutional Convention and helped to create ...

on September 28, 1789.Ben Zimmer
"When Typos are Set in Stone"
''Visual Thesaurus'' (February 18, 2009).

Paul Goldberger Paul Goldberger (born in 1950) is an American author, architecture critic and lecturer. He is known for his "Sky Line" column in ''The New Yorker''. Biography Shortly after starting as a reporter at ''The New York Times'' in 1972, he was assign ...

, ''The City Observed: New York: A Guide to the Architecture of Manhattan''. New York: Vintage Books, 1979, p. 34. "New York State Supreme Court Building"

New York City Department of Citywide Administrative Services The New York City Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS) is a City of New York government agency. It's mission is to make city government work for all New Yorkers. It is responsible for: * Recruiting, hiring, and training City emp ...

(accessed September 27, 2015). The inscription is a slight misquote; Washington actually referred to the "due administration" of justice and not the "true administration" of justice, an error discovered by the ''

New York Post The ''New York Post'' (''NY Post'') is a conservative daily tabloid newspaper published in New York City. The ''Post'' also operates NYPost.com, the celebrity gossip site PageSix.com, and the entertainment site Decider.com. It was established ...

'' in 2009. The error was apparently made by the architect, Guy Lowell, and the mistake was repeated by others, including

Charles Warren General Sir Charles Warren, (7 February 1840 – 21 January 1927) was an officer in the British Royal Engineers. He was one of the earliest European archaeologists of the Biblical Holy Land, and particularly of the Temple Mount. Much of his mi ...

in his Pulitzer Prize–winning ''The Supreme Court in United States History'' (1922). Courthouses on Foley Square

The stone steps leading up to the colonnaded entrance were flanked by two allegorical statues, ''Justice'' and ''Authority'', both designed by the Franco-American sculptor

Philip Martiny Philip H. Martiny (May 19, 1858 – June 26, 1927) was a French-American sculptor who worked in the Paris atelier of Eugene Dock, where he became foreman before emigrating to New York in 1878—to avoid conscription in the French army, he later ...

(1858–1927).Lucy D. Rosenfeld & Marina Harrison, ''Art on Sight: The Best Art Walks In and Near New York City'' (Countryman Press: 2013), pp. 32–33.Marina Harrison & Lucy D. Rosenfeld. ''Artwalks in New York: Delightful Discoveries of Public Art and Gardens in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island'' (NYU Press: 2004), pp. 23–24. These are now at the back of the building. Both are large seated figures made of

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 under ...

. On the right is ''Justice'', a

female figure Female body shape or female figure is the cumulative product of a woman's skeletal structure and the quantity and distribution of muscle and fat on the body. There is a wide range of normality of female body shapes. Female figures are typicall ...

holding a shield and scroll, while on the left is ''Authority'', which holds a scroll and fasces, the Roman symbol of authority. The figures were purchased by the City of New York in 1906 and originally flanked the Centre Street entrance to the

; they were removed in early 1960 for the widening of Centre Street and an expansion of the underlying platforms of the New York City Subway's Brooklyn Bridge–City Hall station and were then moved to the New York County Courthouse.

Interior

The rotunda is in circumference and rises to a

cupola In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, most often dome-like, tall structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome. The word derives, via Italian, fro ...

which in high and long. The rotunda also contains ten stained-glass windows and clerestory.John F. Werner
The New York County Courthouse: A Brief Architectural/Design History
(March 12, 2008). Material printed in conjunction with the talk "Circles and Hexagons upon a Square: Urbanism, Architecture and Civic Identity at 60 Centre Street" (March 12, 2008) by Jon Ritter, Assistant Professor in the Department of History at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, th ...

. The rotunda's most striking feature, however, is the oft-reproduced circular mural ''Law Through the Ages'', William H. Honan
"From Walls and Halls, Art Heritage Emerges"
''The New York Times'' (April 18, 1988). also called ''The History of the Law''. This New Deal-era mural was designed by the Italian artist

Attilio Pusterla Attilio Pusterla (Milan, Italy, 1862 – Woodcliff, New Jersey, United States, 1941) was an Italian painter. Biography By 1880, he attended the Brera Academy alongside Filippo Carcano, Emilio Longoni, and Angelo Morbelli. He allied himself to th ...

and painted by him and a team of artists working under his direction from 1934 and 1936, under sponsorship from the

Federal Art Project The Federal Art Project (1935–1943) was a New Deal program to fund the visual arts in the United States. Under national director Holger Cahill, it was one of five Federal Project Number One projects sponsored by the Works Progress Administrati ...

of the

Works Project Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, in ...

. Pusterla also executed murals in the courthouse's Jury Assembly Rooms on the fourth floor and Ceremonial Courtroom on the third floor. ''Law Through the Ages'' is divided into six lunettes, or sections. Each depicts a pair of figures from historical cultures important to the history of law:

Assyrian Assyrian may refer to: * Assyrian people, the indigenous ethnic group of Mesopotamia. * Assyria, a major Mesopotamian kingdom and empire. ** Early Assyrian Period ** Old Assyrian Period ** Middle Assyrian Empire ** Neo-Assyrian Empire * Assyrian ...

and

Egyptian Egyptian describes something of, from, or related to Egypt. Egyptian or Egyptians may refer to: Nations and ethnic groups * Egyptians, a national group in North Africa ** Egyptian culture, a complex and stable culture with thousands of years of ...

, Hebraic and

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

and

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

and

Frankish Frankish may refer to: * Franks, a Germanic tribe and their culture ** Frankish language or its modern descendants, Franconian languages * Francia, a post-Roman state in France and Germany * East Francia, the successor state to Francia in Germany ...

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

and early colonial, with the final section portraying

and

Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...

. Above the seated figures are portraits of six lawgivers:

Hammurabi Hammurabi (Akkadian: ; ) was the sixth Amorite king of the Old Babylonian Empire, reigning from to BC. He was preceded by his father, Sin-Muballit, who abdicated due to failing health. During his reign, he conquered Elam and the city-states ...

, Moses,

Solon Solon ( grc-gre, Σόλων; BC) was an Athenian statesman, constitutional lawmaker and poet. He is remembered particularly for his efforts to legislate against political, economic and moral decline in Archaic Athens.Aristotle ''Politics'' ...

Justinian Justinian I (; la, Iustinianus, ; grc-gre, Ἰουστινιανός ; 48214 November 565), also known as Justinian the Great, was the Byzantine emperor from 527 to 565. His reign is marked by the ambitious but only partly realized ''renovat ...

, Blackstone and John Marshall.''New York County Courthouse Interior Designation Report''
,

New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) is the New York City agency charged with administering the city's Landmarks Preservation Law. The LPC is responsible for protecting New York City's architecturally, historically, and cu ...

(March 24, 1981). Accessed September 2, 2011. Restoration of the mural (along with a stained-glass window also by Pusterla) took place in 1988; the project received a 1989 Design Award from the Public Design Commission of the City of New York. The restoration project, which was privately funded by money raised from New York City judges and attorneys, was part of a broader renovation campaign in the 1980s and 1990s to protect the courthouse's historic art from water seepage and other damage caused by neglect.

History

The architect was selected through a

design competition A design competition or design contest is a competition in which an entity solicits design proposals from the public for a specified purpose. Architecture An architectural design competition solicits architects to submit design proposals for a b ...

, which Boston architect Guy Lowell won in 1913.Legal History and Architecture of New York County Supreme Courthouse
Historical Society of the Courts of the State of New York (accessed September 27, 2015). Lowell originally proposed a circular building, to be built at the vastly expensive sum of $20 to $30 million. Construction was delayed by

and the design was remade as a smaller and less expensive hexagonal building—a Temple of Justice. The building was designed in the Roman classical style. Work began in 1919. The courthouse's dedication ceremony took place in February 1927, two weeks after Lowell died.

Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals refers to the position of chief judge on the New York Court of Appeals. They are also known as the Chief Judge of New York. The chief judge supervises the seven-judge Court of Appeals. In addition, th ...

Benjamin Cardozo Benjamin ( he, ''Bīnyāmīn''; "Son of (the) right") blue letter bible: https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h3225/kjv/wlc/0-1/ H3225 - yāmîn - Strong's Hebrew Lexicon (kjv) was the last of the two sons of Jacob and Rachel (Jacob's th ...

and Associate Judges of the Court of Appeals Frederick E. Crane and

Irving Lehman Irving Lehman (January 28, 1876 – September 22, 1945) was an American lawyer and politician from New York. He was Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals from 1940 until his death in 1945. Biography He was born on January 28, 1876, in New ...

were present at the event.

In popular culture

Many films and television series have been shot at the New York County Courthouse.William A. Gordon, ''Shot on This Site: A Traveler's Guide to the Places and Locations Used to Film Famous Movies and TV Shows'' (Citadel Press, 1995), p. 209. These include: * ''

Miracle on 34th Street ''Miracle on 34th Street'' (initially released as ''The Big Heart'' in the United Kingdom) is a 1947 American Christmas comedy-drama film released by 20th Century Fox, written and directed by George Seaton and based on a story by Valentine Davi ...

'' (1947): the scene of the trial of Santa Claus (

Edmund Gwenn Edmund Gwenn (born Edmund John Kellaway; 26 September 1877 – 6 September 1959) was an English actor. On film, he is best remembered for his role as Kris Kringle in the Christmas film ''Miracle on 34th Street'' (1947), for which he won t ...

) was shot here; the 1994 remake filmed the courthouse's exterior * ''

12 Angry Men ''Twelve Angry Men'' is an American courtroom drama written by Reginald Rose concerning the jury of a homicide trial. It was broadcast initially as a television play in 1954. The following year it was adapted for the stage. It was adapted for a ...

'' (1957) * '' The Defenders'' (1961-1965) * ''

The Godfather ''The Godfather'' is a 1972 American crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, who co-wrote the screenplay with Mario Puzo, based on Puzo's best-selling 1969 novel of the same title. The film stars Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caa ...

'' (1972) * '' Nuts'' (1987) * ''

Legal Eagles ''Legal Eagles'' is a 1986 American legal romantic comedy mystery crime thriller film directed by Ivan Reitman, written by Jim Cash and Jack Epps, Jr. from a story by Reitman and the screenwriters, and starring Robert Redford, Debra Winger, and ...

'' (1986) * '' Wall Street'' (1987) * ''

Goodfellas ''Goodfellas'' (stylized ''GoodFellas'') is a 1990 American biographical crime film directed by Martin Scorsese, written by Nicholas Pileggi and Scorsese, and produced by Irwin Winkler. It is a film adaptation of the 1985 nonfiction book '' W ...

'' (1990)

* ''

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ''Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles'' is an American media franchise created by the comic book artists Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. It follows Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello and Raphael, four anthropomorphic turtle brothers (named after It ...

'' (1990) * ''

Regarding Henry ''Regarding Henry'' is a 1991 American drama film directed by Mike Nichols and written by J.J. Abrams. It stars Harrison Ford as a New York City lawyer from a dysfunctional family, who struggles to regain his memory and recover his speech and mo ...

'' (1990) * ''

Petrocelli ''Petrocelli'' is an American legal drama that ran for two seasons on NBC from September 11, 1974 to March 31, 1976. Plot Tony Petrocelli is an Italian-American, Harvard-educated lawyer, who grew up in South Boston and gave up the big money and ...

'', television series, during opening credits * ''

Night Court ''Night Court'' is an American television sitcom that aired on NBC from January 4, 1984 to May 31, 1992. The setting was the night shift of a Manhattan municipal court presided over by a young, unorthodox judge, Harold "Harry" T. Stone (portray ...

'', television series * '' Law & Order'' and its many spinoffs * ''

Kojak ''Kojak'' is an American action crime drama television series starring Telly Savalas as the title character, New York City Police Department Detective Lieutenant Theodopolis "Theo" Kojak. Taking the time slot of the popular ''Cannon'' series, ...

'' * ''

Cagney & Lacey ''Cagney & Lacey'' is an American police procedural drama television series that aired on the CBS television network for seven seasons from March 25, 1982, to May 16, 1988. The show is about two New York City police detectives who lead very di ...

'' * ''

Damages At common law, damages are a remedy in the form of a monetary award to be paid to a claimant as compensation for loss or injury. To warrant the award, the claimant must show that a breach of duty has caused foreseeable loss. To be recognised at ...

'' * '' Blue Bloods'' * ''

Bull A bull is an intact (i.e., not castrated) adult male of the species ''Bos taurus'' (cattle). More muscular and aggressive than the females of the same species (i.e., cows), bulls have long been an important symbol in many religions, includin ...

'', television series, end scene in season 2 episode 22 * '' Suits'', television series

References

External links

* {{New York City Historic Sites, state=collapsed 1927 establishments in New York City Civic Center, Manhattan County courthouses in New York (state) Government buildings completed in 1927 Government buildings in Manhattan New York City Designated Landmarks in Manhattan New York City interior landmarks