Jacob Mould's 1871 City Hall Park Fountain

Photo wirednewyork.com

After completion of the elegant City Hall building in 1812, the large triangle of land in front of it was used only partially as a public park. The city's first art museum, a circular building called The Rotunda was built here six years later and various other structures came and went.


With the opening of the Croton Aqueduct in 1842 that brought the city’s water supply from upstate, a large fountain was installed in the park which spewed water 50 feet in the air. It was here that public meetings concerning the outbreak of the Mexican American War in 1846 were held, where Civil War recruitment drives were administered in 1862, and where barracks housed Civil War troops waiting to march off.

After the war, in 1867, the city erected a post office on the southern tip and razed the Rotunda in 1870. The next year Jacob Mould was commissioned to design a new fountain. Mould, who would become chief architect of New York City Parks, was busy at the time co-designing elements of Central Park with Calvert Vaux.

His creation, which replaced the original 1842 fountain, was a Victorian extravaganza worthy of its position in front of City Hall. A granite and bronze central column sat within a great 30-foot square granite basin. The main basin spilled into four semi-circular pools at its sides. Four ornate gas-lit “candelabra” anchored the corners and a gilt finials surmounted both the column and the lamps.

NYPL Collection

The park and Mould’s fountain were an enticement to tourists and New Yorkers alike. Throughout the 1870s people crowded into the park for free concerts.

After World War I, however, civic taste turned from ornate Victorian designs to heroic allegorical monuments. Jacob Mould’s fountain was disassembled in 1920 and shipped to Crotona Park in the Bronx. Two years later an extremely controversial fountain by Frederick William MacMonnies was installed. The sculptural grouping, called Civic Virtue, depicted a muscular, nude male holding a sword, stepping over the prone figures of two females.  The grouping was little admired by female New Yorkers.

Amid the protests, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia had the fountain dismantled and moved to Queens. City Hall Park was without a fountain until 1972 when a new fountain, a gift of philanthropist George T. Delacorte, was installed.

During his second administration, Mayor Rudolph Guiliani became disenchanted with the rag-tag condition of City Hall Park and initiated an all-out renovation and restoration. In 1999 the project, which would cost nearly $35 million, was underway. Pavement, which by now covered the park, was ripped up and grass and gardens reintroduced. The heavy, cast iron fence was restored and replicated where necessary and plans were made for the Jacob Mould fountain to come home.

What Conservations Solutions, Inc., the firm hired to restore the fountain, found when they inspected it was disheartening at best. The fountain’s years in the Bronx had not been kind. All of the bronze elements had been stolen for their scrap value. Where original carved capstones and copingstones had been taken or lost, blank gray stone blocks had been used as replacements.

When vandals sprayed graffiti on the fountain, it had been covered over by layer after layer of white paint. Carefully, Conservations Solutions removed the white paint and the underlying graffiti without damaging the original surviving finishes. All missing granite, bronze and ceramic elements were reproduced using Mould’s original sketches and photographs. Not only were the fountain operations restored to the 1871 plans; the restored lamps burn gas again as they did during those summer concerts 140 years ago.

In 2000, the fountain restoration received the award of Best Park Restoration from the New York City Department of Parks.

The 1886 Potter Building -- Park Row and Beekman Street

photo by paperboy1005--notfortourists.com

At around 10:00 pm on January 31, 1882 the editor of the New York Observer, Samuel Irenaeus Prime and his son, Wendell, the associate-editor, were at work in the Potter Building at 37 Park Row (also known as the World Building). Somewhere in the building--which was mainly occupied by printing firms and newspaper companies--a fire broke out.  Fueled by flammable liquids the conflagration quickly spread. Prime and his son escaped down the stairs while Presbyterian minister Charles Augustus Stoddard, who also worked at the newspaper, rushed to secure records and close the safe.

Trapped, Stoddard inched his way along the Observer sign on the outside wall to an adjoining building. Two other men dropped from a signboard at the fourth story and were caught by firefighters. But before the fire was extinguished, twelve people were dead and the building gutted at a cost of $400,000.

The flames had engulfed the structure so quickly that the Fireman’s Herald wrote that the building “made itself notorious the country over for burning up in the shortest time on record,” and its wealthy owner, Orlando Bronson Potter, was brought before a grand jury.

Potter immediately set forth to rebuild. He commissioned architect Norris Garshom Starkweather, whose offices had been in the burnt-out building, to design its replacement. Within two weeks of the fire Potter announced he would build the largest office building in New York and it would be “absolutely fireproof inside as well as outside.”

Estimated to cost $700,000 it would be constructed of “the best bricks, pressed bricks, terra cotta, and iron,” according to The New York Times. “The roof and floor beams will be of rolled iron, and all floors, except the basement, will be laid on iron girders.”

Ground was broken in April 1883 for the eleven-story building. For the first time in New York the hidden structural steel was fireproofed by ornate terra cotta. The Fireman’s Herald praised the effort, saying “the new structure will be famous as the result of much thought and many experiments in order to put up an ideal fireproof building, and it will endure for ages.”

Construction was not without its problems, however.

In 1884, with construction well underway, the Hugh W. Adams & Co. pig iron merchants went bankrupt. “The failure is the result of the individual embarrassment of Mr. Adams in undertaking to carry out the iron work for the new potter Building,” reported The Times. That same year the bricklayers’ union struck and a year later the painters and carpenters working on the building went on strike, further slowing progress.

By the middle of 1885 the cost of construction had risen to $1.2 million – an astronomical amount at the time. Finally, in June 1886, the building was complete.

Street car tracks run down the middle of the streets and horse-drawn drays line Park Row near the newly-completed Potter Building -- photo NYPL Collection

Starkweather had stressed the verticality of his design resulting in a structure that soars skyward.  He married Queen Anne, Colonial Revival, Renaissance Revival and Greek Revival styles, resulting in what the AIA Guide to New York City would a century later dub an “elaborately ornate confection in cast and pressed terra cotta.”

The Potter Building in 1895 - King's Photographic Views of New York

In 1899 the History of Architecture and the Building Trades of Greater New York disagreed somewhat, saying that “as a design [it] is unusual and perhaps excessive in detail, but has great interest in the disposition of its masses.”

The Press occupies the first floor in 1895 -- King's Photographic Views of New Yor

Sitting at the corner of Park Row and Beeckman Street, the Potter Building anchored “Newspaper Row.” Its location, convenient to City Hall, made it a favorite site for the offices of the city newspapers. The New York Observer immediately moved back in along with other newspapers including the Republican Party’s favorite The Press. There were 200 offices in the building leased to other types of companies, such as the Otis Elevator headquarters, the printing paper manufacturer Adams & Bishop Co., The American Art Papers, and the New York Architectural Terra Cotta Company.

"Newspaper Row" in 1936 with the Potter Building at far right -- photo NYPL Collection

Orlando Potter, who was not only active in real estate but a well-known politician, established his own offices in the new building until his sudden death in 1894. Potter’s real estate holdings alone were estimated at about $6 million yet he left no will nor instructions on how to distribute his wealth.

In April of 1929 A. M. Bing & Co. purchased the building, however it was taken over in foreclosure by the Seamen’s Bank for Savings in 1941 for $500,000. A year after the Federal Public Housing Authority leased one and a half floors in 1944, a syndicate headed by Borrok, Steingart Borrok bought the building for $775,000.

In the socially-turbulent 1960s the Potter Building was home to the Congress of Racial Equality.

A century after the Potter Building was a major member of Newspaper Row a two-year conversion to residential use was begun in 1979.

photo streeteasy.com

Today Orlando Potter’s ground-breaking fireproof structure is an elaborate fixture in the City Hall neighborhood. Born of a disastrous conflagration that caused fire laws for construction to be reworked, it stands as an early example of calculated fireproof construction.

In designating it a landmark, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission praised “some of the handsomest brickwork in New York City” and gratefully noted that “its original design is nearly intact.”

The Abandoned 1904 City Hall Subway Station

Early postcard of City Hall Station - author's collection

Rafael Guastavino's tiled arch construction was not a new idea in 1900; actually it had been used in Europe since ancient times.  He simply rediscovered and improved it, yet earning himself a powerful reputation in doing so. 

Guastavino, born in Valencia, Spain and trained as an architect in Barcelona, immigrated to the U.S. after he earned a medal of merit at the Philadephila Centennial Exposition in 1876.  He founded the Guastavino Fireproof Construction Company and marketed his tiled arch construction as the "Guastavino Tile Arch System."

His construction designs fit well with the popular Arts and Crafts movement of the period.  Interlocking terra cotta tiles were installed in layers of mortar which enabled him to create strong arches with no visible means of support.  Although the clay tiles were, individually, fragile; together they were incredibly strong -- often compared to the inherent strength of an eggshell.

While Guastavino was perfecting his tile construction, New York City was planning a subway system.  Not only could the 19th Century elevated trains no longer efficiently move the multitudes of New Yorkers, they spewed ashes and soot and were noisy.  Through the Rapid Transit Act of 1894 the State had authorized the city to build and run a subway.  Six years later things got underway with the formation of the Interborough Rapid Transit Company.

At what would become the City Hall Station, Mayor Robert Van Wyck put foot to silver shovel and formally initiated construction on the subway system.   Architects George Lewis Heins and Christopher Grant LaFarge were commissioned to design the stations which were functional, white-tiled, nearly-claustrophibic spaces with individual mosaic themes or, in some cases, ornate tiles proclaiming the stations.

Except for City Hall Station.

The new mayor, George B. McCllellon, was explicit.  He wanted it to be a showplace.  "My station under City Hall," he insisted, "will be more beautiful than the rest."  Calling on Rafael Guastavino, Heins and LaFarge incorporated his graceful soaring tiled arches, creating a vast, elegant station.  Twelve brass chandeliers illuminated the earthy ochre, green and black Arts and Crafts tiles.  Nine stunningly ornate leaded glass skylights pierced the ceiling of every fourth bay.  On the opposite wall from the platform large bronze plaques honored the architects, the engineers and the politicians responsible.

As the system was being readied for opening, the Interborough Rapid Transit described the station.  "It might readily have been supposed that the limited space and comparative uniformity of the underground stations would afford but little opportunity for architectural and decorative effects.  The result has shown the fallacy of such a supposition."

At 1:00 on October 27, 1904 ceremonies marked the opening of the New York City Subway at the City Hall Station.  After customary speeches, Mayor McClellan personally turned the silver key and acted as  motorman, transporting the dignataries far uptown to the 137th Street Station.  At 7:00 that evening, paying passengers (admission was by five-cent ticket) were admitted.

According to The New York Times that day, "The rush for tickets to the opening continued unabated yesterday, and scores of demands had to be refused, with the result that the applicants went away declaring they had been slighted."  More than 7,100 paying passengers entered the City Hall Station that evening; a fraction of the system-wide horde of New Yorkers eager to ride the new system.

The City Hall Station was unusual in that, because it was situated at the beginning of the loop where trains would swing around to head back north, its platform was tightly curved.  Eventually lack of use and this design element would doom the station.

photo NYPL Collection

During World War II the beautiful skylights were blacked out for security purposes, eventually becoming covered over.  Then, because the nearby Brooklyn Bridge Stop was more convenient, fewer and fewer passengers were using the elegant station.  In 1945 the Transit Authority shut down the City Hall Station, demolishing the ornamental kiosks and sealing the entrances under concrete slabs.  The tiled arches and brass chandeliers were thrust into tomb-like darkness and the station was essentially forgotten.

Any hope that the City Hall stop would be resurrected was smashed when modern train cars became too long for the sharp curve of the platform.  The wide gaps created between the platform and cars would be unsafe and logistically unreasonable to attempt to correct.

In 1995 plans were made to rehabilitate the stop as an annex to the Transit Museum.  Over $1 million was granted by the federal government and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to restore the space and, for awhile, was opened for tours.  However, in 1998 after terrorist bombings around the globe, Mayor Rudolph Guiliani shut down the space again in concern over the accessibility to the area under City Hall.

Today tours are again conducted, although sporadically.  While some of the skylights have suffered severe damage, some are surprisingly intact.  There is some water damage and the once elegant chandeliers are covered in decades of gray dust.  Yet the grandeur of Mayor McClellan's showpiece is still evident over a century after its opening.