87. Former Police Headquarters Building
Location: 240 Centre Street
Built: 1905-1909
Architect: Hoppin & Koen
National Register Number: 80002690
Listed: March 23, 1980
Visited: October 12, 2008
I got exhausted from this building. So much to take in, so much take pictures of.
It's suspiciously luxe, no? I wonder if the example of Washington, DC has primed us to expect government buildings to be massive bulks expressed in the terms of Greek austerity or a merely functional modernism. Detail is uncivic, a waste of the people's money, and in this building's case, perhaps wasted on the criminal element being hustled through its doors. At the time, though, such Beaux-Arts splendor was justified--or rationalized--by its salutary effect on all spectators; Francis Hoppin, one of the architects, was quoted by The New York Times as saying "...we want to impress both officer and prisoner...with the majesty of the law..." This is of a piece with the premises of the City Beautiful movement that ran contemporary with the building. Its idea was that beautiful cityscapes would inspire a populace--especially immigrant populations, like those surrounding the police headquarters--to transcend their abjection; it was a kind of kindred spirit to the premises of the "broken windows" theory of policing that's been popular in the last couple decades, as both stress people are more likely to be civic-minded when surrounded by evidence, however symbolic and however quotidian, that their surroundings matter.
It replaced a tiny Italianate building at 300 Mulberry Street, built in 1862 when Manhattan alone was home to about 800,000. Demographics alone can explain the HQ's obsolescence circa 1900, as by then Manhattan was a million stronger and the New York City Police Department was building precinct houses about the same size. 240 Centre Street itself, with its gymnasium for "fat policemen" and open-air playground for "poor little waifs and foundlings" (the NYT's words, so not kidding) was superseded in 1973 by the utterly charmless One Police Plaza--a building that, unlike this post's subject, will probably never receive a residential conversion.
Built: 1905-1909
Architect: Hoppin & Koen
National Register Number: 80002690
Listed: March 23, 1980
Visited: October 12, 2008
I got exhausted from this building. So much to take in, so much take pictures of.
It's suspiciously luxe, no? I wonder if the example of Washington, DC has primed us to expect government buildings to be massive bulks expressed in the terms of Greek austerity or a merely functional modernism. Detail is uncivic, a waste of the people's money, and in this building's case, perhaps wasted on the criminal element being hustled through its doors. At the time, though, such Beaux-Arts splendor was justified--or rationalized--by its salutary effect on all spectators; Francis Hoppin, one of the architects, was quoted by The New York Times as saying "...we want to impress both officer and prisoner...with the majesty of the law..." This is of a piece with the premises of the City Beautiful movement that ran contemporary with the building. Its idea was that beautiful cityscapes would inspire a populace--especially immigrant populations, like those surrounding the police headquarters--to transcend their abjection; it was a kind of kindred spirit to the premises of the "broken windows" theory of policing that's been popular in the last couple decades, as both stress people are more likely to be civic-minded when surrounded by evidence, however symbolic and however quotidian, that their surroundings matter.
It replaced a tiny Italianate building at 300 Mulberry Street, built in 1862 when Manhattan alone was home to about 800,000. Demographics alone can explain the HQ's obsolescence circa 1900, as by then Manhattan was a million stronger and the New York City Police Department was building precinct houses about the same size. 240 Centre Street itself, with its gymnasium for "fat policemen" and open-air playground for "poor little waifs and foundlings" (the NYT's words, so not kidding) was superseded in 1973 by the utterly charmless One Police Plaza--a building that, unlike this post's subject, will probably never receive a residential conversion.
Labels: Hoppin and Koen, Little Italy
posted by Michael at
10:55 AM
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