New York City Municipal Archives

The Surrogate's Courthouse (also the Hall of Records and 31 Chambers Street) is a historic building at the northwest corner of Chambers and Centre Streets in the Civic Center of Manhattan in New York City. Completed in 1907, it was designed in the Beaux Arts style. John Rochester Thomas created the original plans while Arthur J. Horgan and Vincent J. Slattery oversaw the building's completion. The building faces City Hall Park and the Tweed Courthouse to the south and the Manhattan Municipal Building to the east. The Surrogate's Courthouse is a seven-story, steel-framed structure with a granite facade and elaborate marble interiors. The fireproof frame was designed to safely accommodate the city's paper records. The exterior is decorated with 54 sculptures by Philip Martiny and Henry Kirke Bush-Brown, as well as a three-story Corinthian order colonnade on Chambers and Reade Streets. The basement houses the New York City Municipal Archives. The fifth floor contains the New York Surrogate's Court for New York County, which handles probate and estate proceedings for the New York State Unified Court System. The Hall of Records building had been planned since the late 19th century to replace an outdated building in City Hall Park; plans for the current building were approved in 1897. Construction took place between 1899 and 1907, having been subject to several delays because of controversies over funding, sculptures, and Horgan and Slattery's involvement after Thomas's death in 1901. Renamed the Surrogate's Courthouse in 1962, the building has undergone few alterations over the years. The Surrogate's Courthouse is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a National Historic Landmark, and its facade and interior are both New York City designated landmarks.

The Rotunda was a building that stood in City Hall Park in Lower Manhattan, New York City, from 1818 to 1870.

The David N. Dinkins Municipal Building (originally the Municipal Building and later known as the Manhattan Municipal Building) is a 40-story, 580-foot (180 m) building at 1 Centre Street, east of Chambers Street, in the Civic Center neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City The structure was built to accommodate increased governmental space demands after the 1898 consolidation of the city's five boroughs. Construction began in 1909 and continued through 1914 at a total cost of $12 million (equivalent to $232,730,000 in 2020). Designed by McKim, Mead & White, the Manhattan Municipal Building was among the last buildings erected as part of the City Beautiful movement in New York. Its architectural style has been characterized as Roman Imperial, Italian Renaissance, French Renaissance, or Beaux-Arts. The Municipal Building is one of the largest governmental buildings in the world, with about 1 million square feet (93,000 m2) of office space. The base incorporates a subway station, while the top includes the gilded Civic Fame statue. The Municipal Building was erected after three previous competitions to build a single municipal building for New York City's government had failed. In 1907, the city's Commissioner of Bridges held a competition to design the building in conjunction with a subway and trolley terminal at the Brooklyn Bridge, of which McKim, Mead & White's plan was selected. The first offices in the Municipal Building were occupied by 1913. In later years, it received several renovations, including elevator replacements in the 1930s and restorations in the mid-1970s and the late 1980s. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the building a landmark in 1966, and it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.

An outdoor bronze sculpture of Horace Greeley by artist John Quincy Adams Ward and architect Richard Morris Hunt is located in City Hall Park in Manhattan, New York. Cast in 1890, the seated statue is set on a Quincy granite pedestal.

The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) is the New York City agency charged with administering the city's Landmarks Preservation Law. The LPC is responsible for protecting New York City's architecturally, historically, and culturally significant buildings and sites by granting them landmark or historic district status, and regulating them after designation. It is the largest municipal preservation agency in the nation. As of July 1, 2020, the LPC has designated more than 37,000 landmark properties in all five boroughs. Most of these are concentrated in historic districts, although there are over a thousand individual landmarks, as well as numerous interior and scenic landmarks. Mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr. first organized a preservation committee in 1961, and the following year, created the LPC. The LPC's power was greatly strengthened after the Landmarks Law was passed in April 1965, one and a half years after the destruction of Pennsylvania Station. The LPC has been involved in several prominent preservation decisions, including that of Grand Central Terminal. By 1990, the LPC was cited by David Dinkins as having preserved New York City's municipal identity and enhanced the market perception of a number of neighborhoods. The LPC is governed by eleven commissioners. The Landmarks Preservation Law stipulates that a building must be at least thirty years old before the LPC can declare it a landmark.

The Brooklyn Bridge–City Hall/Chambers Street station is a New York City Subway station complex in Lower Manhattan. The complex is served by trains of the IRT Lexington Avenue Line and the BMT Nassau Street Line. The station is served by the 4, 6, and J trains at all times; the 5 train at all times except late nights; the ⟨6⟩ train on weekdays in the peak direction; and the Z train during rush hours in the peak direction. The complex comprises two stations, Brooklyn Bridge–City Hall and Chambers Street. The Brooklyn Bridge–City Hall station was built for the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT), and was an express station on the city's first subway line. The station opened on October 27, 1904, as one of the original 28 stations of the New York City Subway. The Chambers Street station was built for the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (later the Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation, or BMT) as part of the Dual Contracts. The Nassau Street Line station opened on August 4, 1913. Several modifications have been made to both stations over the years, and they were connected within a single fare control area in 1948. The Lexington Avenue Line station, under Centre Street, has two island platforms, two side platforms, and four tracks; the side platforms are not in use. The Nassau Street Line station, under the Manhattan Municipal Building, has three island platforms, one side platform, and four tracks; only the outer tracks and two of the island platforms are in use. The complex contains elevators that make it compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.

The Manhattan Community Board 1 is a New York City community board encompassing the neighborhoods of Battery Park City, the Financial District, the South Street Seaport, and TriBeCa in Lower Manhattan in the borough of Manhattan as well as Liberty Island, Ellis Island and Governors Island. It is bounded by Baxter Street, Pearl Street, the Brooklyn Bridge and the East River on the east, Upper New York Bay on the south, the Hudson River on the west and Canal Street on the north. Manhattan Community Board 1's current Chairperson is Anthony Notaro, Jr. and its staff includes: District Manager Lucian Reynolds, Director of Land Use and Planning Diana Switaj, Planning Consultant Michael Levine, Community Liaison Tamar Hovsepian and Community Coordinator Lucy Acevedo.The Manhattan Community Board 1 office is located at 1 Centre Street, Room 2202 North, New York, NY 10007.

African Burial Ground National Monument is a monument at Duane Street and African Burial Ground Way (Elk Street) in the Civic Center section of Lower Manhattan, New York City. Its main building is the Ted Weiss Federal Building at 290 Broadway. The site contains the remains of more than 419 Africans buried during the late 17th and 18th centuries in a portion of what was the largest colonial-era cemetery for people of African descent, some free, most enslaved. Historians estimate there may have been as many as 10,000–20,000 burials in what was called the Negroes Burial Ground in the 1700s. The five to six acre site's excavation and study was called "the most important historic urban archaeological project in the United States." The Burial Ground site is New York's earliest known African-American cemetery; studies show an estimated 15,000 African American people were buried here.The discovery highlighted the forgotten history of enslaved Africans in colonial and federal New York City, who were integral to its development. By the American Revolutionary War, they constituted nearly a quarter of the population in the city. New York had the second-largest number of enslaved Africans in the nation after Charleston, South Carolina. Scholars and African-American civic activists joined to publicize the importance of the site and lobby for its preservation. The site was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1993 and a national monument in 2006 by President George W. Bush. In 2003 Congress appropriated funds for a memorial at the site and directed redesign of the federal courthouse to allow for this. A design competition attracted more than 60 proposals. The memorial was dedicated in 2007 to commemorate the role of Africans and African Americans in colonial and federal New York City, and in United States history. Several pieces of public art were also commissioned for the site. A visitor center opened in 2010 to provide interpretation of the site and African-American history in New York.

Hall des Lumieres or Hall des Lumières is a digital art and event space located in the former Emigrant Savings Bank Building at 49 Chambers Street in the Civic Center neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York City. Rather than a series of traveling digital art shows, each exhibit in the space was created to fit the building's architecture.It opened in September 2022 with a show on Gustav Klimt, whose works date to the same era as the building in which it is housed. Subsequent exhibits included Chagall, Paris – New York, Kandinsky, The Odyssey of Abstraction, Hip Hop 'Til Infinity, Infinite Horizons and Destination Cosmos: The Immersive Space Experience in partnership with NASA.

49 Chambers, formerly known as the Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank Building and 51 Chambers Street, is a residential building at 49–51 Chambers Street in the Civic Center neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It was built between 1909 and 1912 and was designed by Raymond F. Almirall in the Beaux-Arts style. The building occupies a slightly irregular lot bounded by Chambers Street to the south, Elk Street to the east, and Reade Street to the north. 49 Chambers was the largest bank building in the United States upon its completion. It was the first skyscraper to use the "H" layout, which provided light and air to more parts of the building. The basement through second floor fill the entire lot, while the third through fifteenth floors contain the "H" layout and are designed to resemble a pair of towers. The facade is made largely of Indiana Limestone, as well as some brick and granite. Inside, the first and second floors constitute a former banking hall, used as an event space. The upper floors were used as offices before being converted to 99 residential condominiums. The current building is the third built by the Emigrant Savings Bank on the same site; the bank had previously erected structures in 1858 and 1885–1887. 49 Chambers' banking hall was occupied by the bank until 1969, while office tenants occupied the upper floors. The building was subsequently owned by the government of New York City until 2013, and it was converted to condominiums in 2017. 49 Chambers was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982, and both the exterior and the first floor interior were designated New York City landmarks in 1985.

City Hall was a station on the IRT Second Avenue Line in Manhattan, New York City, which also served trains of the IRT Third Avenue Line. It lay along Park Row, south of the Manhattan Municipal Building, across the street from the BRT’s Park Row Terminal. It had 2 levels. The lower level served Third Avenue trains and had two tracks with two side platforms for exiting passengers, and a center island platform for entering passengers. The upper level served Second Avenue trains and had two tracks and two side platforms for exiting passengers, and one island platform for entering passengers. Second Avenue trains served the station until June 13, 1942, and Third Avenue trains served the station until December 31, 1953. The next stop to the north was Chatham Square for all trains.

The Tweed Courthouse (also known as the Old New York County Courthouse) is a historic courthouse building at 52 Chambers Street in the Civic Center of Manhattan in New York City. It was built in the Italianate style with Romanesque Revival interiors. William M. "Boss" Tweed – the corrupt leader of Tammany Hall, a political machine that controlled the New York state and city governments when the courthouse was built – oversaw the building's erection. The Tweed Courthouse served as a judicial building for New York County, a county of New York state coextensive with the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is the second-oldest city government building in the borough, after City Hall. The structure comprises pavilions to the east and west of a central section, as well as a rear wing to the south. Architect John Kellum and political appointee Thomas Little designed the first portion of the building, which was constructed from 1861 to 1872. Construction was interrupted in 1871 when Kellum died and the corruption involved in the building's construction was exposed to the public. The project was completed by architect Leopold Eidlitz, who added the rear wing and finished the interior between 1877 and 1881. The media criticized the project as wasteful and gaudy during the courthouse's construction, and for a century after its completion, there were frequent proposals to demolish the building. Several modifications were made after completion, including removal of its front steps. Modern restoration and historic preservation were completed in 2001. The building has since housed the New York City Department of Education's headquarters on its upper floors and schools on its ground level. The Tweed Courthouse is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a National Historic Landmark, and its facade and interior are both New York City designated landmarks.