The Suffolk County Courthouse, now formally the John Adams Courthouse, is a historic courthouse building in

Pemberton Square Pemberton Square (est. 1835) in the Government Center area of Boston, Massachusetts, was developed by P.T. Jackson in the 1830s as an architecturally uniform mixed-use enclave surrounding a small park. In the mid-19th century both private resi ...

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

. It is home to the

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) is the highest court in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Although the claim is disputed by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, the SJC claims the distinction of being the oldest continuously fu ...

(the state's highest court) and the

Massachusetts Appeals Court The Massachusetts Appeals Court is the intermediate appellate court of Massachusetts. It was created in 1972 as a court of general appellate jurisdiction. The court is located at the John Adams Courthouse at Pemberton Square in Boston, the ...

. Built in 1893, it was the major work of Boston's first city architect, George Clough, and is one of the city's few surviving late 19th-century monumental civic buildings. It was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 1974.

Description

The John Adams Courthouse is located on the west side of Pemberton Square, now little more than an open plaza bounded by the courthouse on the west, and the backside of the curved Center Plaza building, which faces Tremont Street opposite the

Boston City Hall Boston City Hall is the seat of local government in the United States, city government of Boston, Massachusetts. It includes the offices of the List of mayors of Boston, mayor of Boston and the Boston City Council. The current hall was built in ...

plaza. The courthouse is a six-story granite structure, fifteen bays wide, with an eclectic stylistic composition. Its first 1-1/2 floor function by appearance as an elevated basement, with small arched windows close to the ground, above which are larger rectangular windows divided in the upper third by a stone stringcourse. Above this basement level is an arcaded mezzanine of large round-arch openings in which paired sash windows are topped by a half-round transom. A dentillated cornice separates this level from a narrower band of three-part windows, above which is a two-level

mansard roof A mansard or mansard roof (also called French roof or curb roof) is a multi-sided gambrel-style hip roof characterised by two slopes on each of its sides, with the lower slope at a steeper angle than the upper, and often punctured by dormer wi ...

pierced by a variety of dormers. There are projecting pavilions at the ends of the main facade, rising to the top of the mezzanine level on the sides, and the full roof height on the front.

History

The courthouse was built in 1893 to a design by Boston city architect George Clough. Stylistically the building was described at the time as "German Renaissance"; it is now viewed as transitional between the monumental Second Empire style of Boston's

Old City Hall Old City Hall may refer to: Asia In Hong Kong * Old City Hall (Hong Kong) Europe In Croatia * Old City Hall (Zagreb) In Denmark * Old City Hall (1479–1728), in Copenhagen * Old City Hall (1728–1795), in Copenhagen * Old City Hall (Aalborg ...

and the Classical Revival. Of the many buildings Clough designed for the city, this is his largest and most elaborate design. Clough also designed the 1909 enlargement of the structure, which added the French Chateau-style roof. From 1893 to 1938, the Supreme Judicial Court and the Social Law Library occupied the building, known then as the Suffolk County Courthouse. In 2002, the Supreme Judicial Court, the

, and the Social Law Library returned to the restored building, which was renamed the John Adams Courthouse.

Gallery

File:Suffolk County Courthouse Boston.jpg, Entrance to the new Suffolk County Courthouse, completed in 1937, adjacent to the John Adams Courthouse, and currently home to the Suffolk County Superior Court File:Suffolk County Courthouse south entrance.JPG, The south side of the Suffolk County Courthouse as viewed from the Tremont Street steps File:Rufus Choate by Daniel Chester French.jpg,

Statue of Rufus Choate A statue of Rufus Choate stands in the John Adams Courthouse in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. The statue was designed by Daniel Chester French and honors Choate, a lawyer and politician from Massachusetts. It was dedicated in 1898. Hi ...

, located inside the court house

References

External links

Virtual tour
of the John Adams Courthouse from the Massachusetts Judiciary
History of the John Adams Courthouse
// © 2021 Commonwealth of Massachusetts. {{Authority control County courthouses in Massachusetts Courthouses in Boston Courthouses on the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts George A. Clough buildings Government Center, Boston National Register of Historic Places in Boston Presidential memorials in the United States 1894 establishments in Massachusetts

Description

History

Gallery

See also

References

External links