Municipal Building

Abstract

THE MUNICIPAL BUILDING was the first skyscraper constructed by McKim, Mead & White, in the waning years of the firm’s influential Beaux-Arts career. The 40-story building, which contains 650,000 square feet of city offices, was designed by the partner William Mitchell Kendall. Charles McKim himself was averse to skyscrapers and the trend towards gigantism and said, “I think the skyline of New York daily grows more hideous.” The Municipal Building features some of the best aspects of Beaux-Arts architecture, which sought to be both monumental and an integral part of the city’s fabric. The 559-foot-tall building, including a 15-story tower, is superbly metropolitan: it straddles the extension of Chambers Street (now closed to traffic) with a Roman triumphal arch like a modern-day Colossus of Rhodes. The 24-story wings of the U-shaped court, covered in light-colored Maine granite, reach out to embrace City Hall.