Page 86 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - New York City

84  NE W Y ORK CIT Y AREA B Y AREA

l City Hall
City Hall Park. Map 1 C1. Tel 311.
q Brooklyn Br-City Hall Park Pl.
Open 10am Thu (free tours, book in
advance). 7 8 (212) 788-2656.
A gleaming marble palace, City
Hall features columns, arches,
and furnishings practically
unchanged since 1812. A stately
Federal-style building (with
some influences from the
French Renaissance), it was
designed by John McComb, Jr.,
the first prominent American-
born architect, and the French
émigré Joseph Mangin.
Marble cladding was not used
for the building’s rear, since it
The Ambrose lightship at a South Street Seaport pier on the East River was not expected that the city
would ever develop farther to
j South Street as a British training vessel in the the north. In 1954, a program of
Seaport 1930s. The museum also owns restoration remedied this, and
the schooner Pioneer, which the interior was refurbished.
19 Fulton St. Map 2 E2. Tel (212) 732- cruises the harbor in the Mangin is usually given credit
8257. q Fulton St. 7 8 Concerts. summer. To enjoy views of for designing the exterior, and
0 = ∑ southstreetseaport.com. the Brooklyn Bridge, visit the McComb for the beautiful
South Street Seaport Museum: 12 upper deck of Pier 15. interior with its fine domed
Fulton St. Tel (212) 748-8600. rotunda encircled by 10
Open Apr–Oct: 11am–5pm Wed–
Sun. & 7 8 Lectures, exhibits, k Criminal columns. The space beneath
films. 0 = ∑ southstreet Courthouses it opens onto elegant marble
seaportmuseum.org stairways, leading to the splendid
New York Court District: Centre St second-floor City Council
This district of cobbled streets and Chambers St. Map 1 C1–2 D1. chambers and the Governor’s
offers spectacular views of q Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall. Room, which houses a portrait
Brooklyn Bridge and the Open 9am–5pm Mon–Fri. 7 gallery of early New York leaders.
East River. Part of New York’s This magnificent entrance has
original dockyards, South Street Grand Neo-Classical buildings welcomed rulers and heroes
Seaport has been nestled dominate New York’s court district. for nearly 200 years. In 1865
here since 1966, with a The pyramid-topped Thurgood Abraham Lincoln’s body lay
multitude of restaurants and Marshall US Courthouse, designed in state in this hall.
shops. Since Hurricane Sandy by Cass Gilbert in 1936, soars at Stand on the steps and look
hit the area in 2012, the site has 590 ft (180 m), and serves as to your right to see a statue
been undergoing a multi-year a federal courthouse today. of Nathan Hale, a US soldier
redevelopment project. Plans The adjacent New York County hanged by the British as a spy
include the opening of the iPic Courthouse, opened in 1927,
Theaters in the Fulton Market is one of the state’s supreme
building and a new shopping courts. Its elaborate rotunda
mall on Pier 17. has Tiffany lighting fixtures, and
The South Street Seaport murals on themes of law and
Museum has a large collection justice by Attilio Pusterla.
of maritime art and artifacts, as Surrogate’s Court, completed
well as Federal-style warehouses in 1907, stands on Chambers
that date back to 1812. The Street. With an ornate-
main ticket office and galleries columned facade of white
are located on Schermerhorn Maine granite, the roof area has
Row (see p81), Fulton Street. figures by Henry K. Bush-Brown,
The museum owns six representing the different
historic ships that stand at stages of life from childhood to
nearby Pier 16. Those open to old age. The ceiling mosaic of
visitors include the Ambrose, the stunning central hall was
a lightship from 1908, and designed by William de Leftwich
the Peking, a massive German Dodge, and features the signs of City Hall’s magnificent early 19th-
merchant ship that later served the zodiac. century facade

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