Federal Hall
Federal Hall was the first capitol building of the United States established under the Constitution. Serving as the meeting place of the First United States Congress and the site of George Washington's first presidential inauguration, the building was located on Wall Street facing the northern end of Broad Street in Lower Manhattan, New York City, from 1703 to 1812. The site is occupied by the Federal Hall National Memorial, a Greek Revival–style building completed in 1842 as the New York Custom House. The National Park Service now operates the building as a national memorial commemorating the historic events that occurred at Federal Hall.
The original structure on the site was built from 1699 to 1703 as New York's second city hall. The building hosted the 1765 Stamp Act Congress, before the American Revolution. After the United States became an independent nation, it served as the meeting place for the Congress of the Confederation, the nation's first central government under the Articles of Confederation, from 1785 to 1789, and the building was expanded and updated. With the establishment of the United States federal government in 1789, it hosted the 1st Congress and the inauguration of George Washington as the nation's first president. It was demolished in 1812.
The current structure, designed by Ithiel Town and Alexander Jackson Davis, was built as New York's U.S. Custom House, before serving as a Subtreasury building from 1862 to 1925. The Subtreasury building continued to be used as a governmental office building for a decade, and it opened as a public memorial in 1940. The building is constructed of Tuckahoe marble. Its architectural features include a colonnade of Doric columns, in addition to a domed rotunda designed by the sculptor John Frazee. In front of the building is a large statue of George Washington by John Quincy Adams Ward. The facade and part of the interior are New York City designated landmarks, and the building is also a contributing property to the Wall Street Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
First structure
In the 17th century, the area north of Wall Street was occupied by the farm of a man named John Damen. Damen sold the land in 1685 to captain John Knight, an officer of Thomas Dongan's administration. Knight resold the land to Dongan, who resold it in 1689 to Abraham de Peyster and Nicholas Bayard. Both de Peyster and Bayard served as mayors of New York.City Hall
The original structure on the site was built as New York's second city hall from 1699 to 1703, on Wall Street, in what is today the Financial District of Lower Manhattan. This structure had been designed by James Evetts to replace Stadt Huys, the city's first administrative center. It was two stories high, with wings extending west and east from a recessed central section. The stones from Wall Street's old fortifications were used for City Hall. Also housed at City Hall was a public library, as well as a firehouse with two fire engines imported from London. The upper stories were used as a debtors' prison.In 1735, John Peter Zenger, a newspaper publisher, was arrested for committing libel against the British royal governor and was imprisoned and tried there. His acquittal, on the grounds that the material he had printed was true, served as one of the bases for freedom of the press as it was later defined in the Bill of Rights.
City Hall was first remodeled in 1765, with the addition of a third story. That October, delegates from nine of the Thirteen Colonies met as the Stamp Act Congress in response to the levying of the Stamp Act by the Parliament of Great Britain. Drawn together for the first time in organized opposition to British policy, the attendees drafted a message to King George III, the House of Lords, and the House of Commons, claiming entitlement to the same rights as the residents of Britain and protesting the colonies' "taxation without representation". The Sons of Liberty briefly took over the building from the British during the American Revolutionary War in 1775, seizing British soldiers' munitions. The United States Declaration of Independence was read at City Hall on July 18, 1776, shortly after the country declared independence from Britain. After the war, City Hall became a meeting place for the Continental Congress.
Federal Hall
After the American Revolution, City Hall was home to the Congress of the Confederation of the United States under the Articles of Confederation. The first meeting of the Confederation Congress took place at City Hall on April 13, 1784.Design and construction
The Confederation Congress still needed a permanent structure, and the New York City Council and mayor James Duane wished for the city to be the United States capital. Private citizens and the government of New York City spent $65,000 to convert the old City Hall into a congressional building. The Patriots felt that the building should be remodeled in a distinctively American style while also preserving the pre-colonial structure. Pierre Charles L'Enfant, a French architect who had helped the Americans during the Revolutionary War, was selected to remodel the structure. In December 1784, Congress voted to designate New York as the nation's capital. The Confederation Congress passed the Northwest Ordinance at City Hall in 1787.L'Enfant's expansion, which took place between 1788 and 1789, was characteristic of Georgian-style designs, although he used larger proportions, and added American motifs. An arched walkway was built through the street-level basement, with four heavy Tuscan columns supporting a balcony. On balcony level, four high Doric columns were installed, supporting a pediment that depicted an American eagle with thirteen arrows. L'Enfant also created a loggia with a recessed gallery behind the columns, and he placed decorative swags above the second-story windows. The ground-story room for the United States House of Representatives measured across and about two stories high. A smaller room for the United States Senate was on the second floor, and L'Enfant built a third story, topped by a cupola and hip roof.
Usage
The city moved all of its municipal offices out of the building in late 1788, but the New York Society Library's 3,500-volume library remained in the building for the time being. In 1789, the building became Federal Hall, the nation's first seat of government under the Constitution. The 1st Congress met there beginning on March 4, 1789. The first inauguration of George Washington, the first-ever inauguration of a President of the United States, occurred on the balcony of the building on April 30, 1789. Many important U.S. legislative actions occurred with the 1st Congress at Federal Hall. For example, on September 25, 1789, the United States Bill of Rights was proposed in Federal Hall, establishing the freedoms claimed by the Stamp Act Congress. The Judiciary Act of 1789 was also enacted in the building, setting up the United States federal court system.In 1790, the United States capital moved to Philadelphia. Federal Hall was turned into quarters for the state assembly and courts. The Federal Hall building was one of the few structures in the area to survive an 1804 fire that caused $2 million in damage. Federal Hall was briefly converted back into a city hall in 1810. With the opening of the current New York City Hall in 1812, the New York City government no longer needed Federal Hall. The building was sold for $425 and was demolished. Part of the original railing and balcony floor, where Washington had been inaugurated, is on display in the memorial and was at one point held by the New-York Historical Society. Nassau Street had originally curved around the building to the west, while Broad Street had run to the east. Nassau Street was straightened after the building was demolished, and it runs to the west of the modern Federal Hall National Memorial.
Second structure
The current Greek Revival structure was the first building that was specifically constructed for the U.S. Custom House for the Port of New York. The Custom House had been located in Government House, a converted residence on Bowling Green. The old building was described as "ordinary and inconvenient", and it had become overcrowded, prompting the federal government to lease additional space in 1831. Samuel Swartwout, the Customs Collector for the Port of New York, advocated in 1832 for "spacious, safe, secure" accommodations. Land for the new building was purchased incrementally in 1816, 1824, and 1832.Custom House
—composed of Ithiel Town and Alexander Jackson Davis, then two of the city's most prolific architects—won an architectural design competition for the new Custom House building and was awarded the contract for the building's design in August 1833. Town estimated that the plans would cost $250,000 if the Custom House building was made of granite, or $320,000 to $350,000 if it was of masonry, brick, and marble. The original design called for a colonnade of eight columns facing Wall and Pine Streets, square pilasters on Nassau Street, a massive coffered dome protruding above the roof, and a cruciform floor plan. The building would have also been decorated with details such as acroteria, metopes, and triangular pediments. Town suggested that Samuel Thomson, architect of the Administration Building at Sailors' Snug Harbor, be named the construction superintendent.Ultimately, the building was constructed out of marble. Work on the Custom House began in January 1834, but the Customs Service then requested that the plans for the new building be downsized due to increasing costs. As a result, the dome was reduced in size and the original double colonnade on the facade was changed to a single colonnade. Thomson resigned in April 1835, taking the plans with him. Sculptor John Frazee was named the superintendent in Thomson's stead, and he worked to piece together Town and Davis's original plans. Frazee influenced the design of the interior and decorative details, and he modified plans for the attic to a full-height third story. Frazee got into a dispute with building commissioner Walter Bowne and was dismissed in 1840, but he was rehired in 1841.
The Custom House building opened in 1842 at a cost of $928,312. Importers would perform their business at a counter in the building's central rotunda. The building came to be associated with political patronage. "The Seven Stages of the Office Seeker", an 1852 print by Edward Williams Clay, satirized how Democratic Party patronage under New York governor Martin Van Buren was centered around the Custom House. By 1861, the structure was too small to accommodate all of the customs duties of the U.S. Custom House for the Port of New York. The U.S. government decided to move the customs offices one block to 55 Wall Street, then occupied by the Merchants' Exchange. The federal government of the United States signed a lease with the Merchants' Exchange in February 1862, intending to move into the building that May. The customs offices were moved to 55 Wall Street starting in August 1862.