99. US Courthouse
A.K.A.: Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse; Thurgood Marshall Federal Courthouse
Location: 40 Centre Street/40 Foley Square
Built: 1932-1936; currently under restoration
Architects: Cass Gilbert and Cass Gilbert, Jr.
National Register Number: 87001596
Listed: September 2, 1987
Visited: December 30, 2008
Official Documentation: NYCLPC Report; NRHP Nomination Form
As an urban space, the Civic Center does not work, and probably never will. Knock down the gallumphing modernist anonymoids, and you'd be left with a grand buildings in odd spatial and height relationships with each other. Tear them down--and this was seriously considered many times in the last hundred-plus years--and you're still left to contend with useless plazas and bridge-fed traffic arteries that make life difficult for the pedestrian. Remove them, and...well, now you're beyond the realm of real-world budgets and political will, so forget it. (Manhattan's most successful urban space outside of Central Park is inordinately devoted to mass media companies--what does that tell you?)
Like even the best buildings in the immediate vicinity, this courthouse provides grandeur in a frankly awkward way. Paired with the Municipal Building forms a solid, almost wall-like presence on the west side of Centre Street that isn't matched on the east: grand, but lopsided. And by itself, when consumed in one visual gulp, it feels like a unimaginative expression of expediency. Need to house a hunk of courtroom space and give your building a certain ineffable sense of gravitas? Well, tower + temple = problem solved! Yeah, at least it tries for ceremony--more you can say about certain other dreary places I've been stuck in thanks to jury duty--but all that austere neoclassical jazz below, I can't really warm up to. Its gilded pyramid makes up for a lot, though. That's perfectly sited to catch the rays of the sun and provide a little golden twinkle for the people on the ground.
This is Cass Gilbert's last work, by the way--he passed away in the middle of its construction, leaving his son, Cass Gilbert Jr. to see it through its completion. I'll be saying a lot more about him when I cover the Woolworth Building...which should be in a week or three! Happy New Year! I'm off to impromptu and drunken late night festivities at the 59th Street Apple Store! Woo!
Location: 40 Centre Street/40 Foley Square
Built: 1932-1936; currently under restoration
Architects: Cass Gilbert and Cass Gilbert, Jr.
National Register Number: 87001596
Listed: September 2, 1987
Visited: December 30, 2008
Official Documentation: NYCLPC Report; NRHP Nomination Form
As an urban space, the Civic Center does not work, and probably never will. Knock down the gallumphing modernist anonymoids, and you'd be left with a grand buildings in odd spatial and height relationships with each other. Tear them down--and this was seriously considered many times in the last hundred-plus years--and you're still left to contend with useless plazas and bridge-fed traffic arteries that make life difficult for the pedestrian. Remove them, and...well, now you're beyond the realm of real-world budgets and political will, so forget it. (Manhattan's most successful urban space outside of Central Park is inordinately devoted to mass media companies--what does that tell you?)
Like even the best buildings in the immediate vicinity, this courthouse provides grandeur in a frankly awkward way. Paired with the Municipal Building forms a solid, almost wall-like presence on the west side of Centre Street that isn't matched on the east: grand, but lopsided. And by itself, when consumed in one visual gulp, it feels like a unimaginative expression of expediency. Need to house a hunk of courtroom space and give your building a certain ineffable sense of gravitas? Well, tower + temple = problem solved! Yeah, at least it tries for ceremony--more you can say about certain other dreary places I've been stuck in thanks to jury duty--but all that austere neoclassical jazz below, I can't really warm up to. Its gilded pyramid makes up for a lot, though. That's perfectly sited to catch the rays of the sun and provide a little golden twinkle for the people on the ground.
This is Cass Gilbert's last work, by the way--he passed away in the middle of its construction, leaving his son, Cass Gilbert Jr. to see it through its completion. I'll be saying a lot more about him when I cover the Woolworth Building...which should be in a week or three! Happy New Year! I'm off to impromptu and drunken late night festivities at the 59th Street Apple Store! Woo!
Labels: Cass Gilbert, Cass Gilbert Jr., Civic Center, Skyscraper
posted by Michael at
11:05 PM
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