Look to your right at the grand, column-lined facade of Brooklyn Borough Hall. This beauty was originally built in 1848 as the City Hall for the independent City of Brooklyn, back before it merged with New York City in 1898.
The story behind its construction is a classic tale of budget cuts and second chances. In 1835, an architect named Calvin Pollard won a design contest for the building. They dug the foundations and laid the cornerstone, but then the money completely dried up. The site sat abandoned for almost ten years until funds reappeared in 1845. The city hired Gamaliel King, the architect who had come in second place in the original contest, to take over. The catch was that King had to fit his entire design into Pollard's already laid foundation. King scaled things down but kept the impressive Greek Revival style, designed to look like an ancient temple with those massive front columns, using bright Tuckahoe marble.
The building has seen its fair share of drama. In February 1895, some stray waste paper caught fire and destroyed the upper floors, including the original cupola, which is that little domed tower perched on the roof, along with the statue of Lady Justice standing on it. A new Victorian cast-iron cupola was built three years later. By the 1930s, people were actually proposing to tear the whole building down, claiming it was no longer useful. Thankfully, it was saved and eventually fully restored in the 1980s. They even brought in the exact same French metalworkers who restored the Statue of Liberty to fix up the copper roof and place a brand new Lady Justice on top.
If you check your app, you can see how the bustling 1908 streetscape right here transformed into the modern pedestrian plaza in front of you. Today, that plaza is a very popular spot for local skateboarders to practice their tricks. If you want to peek inside, the building is open Monday through Friday from 9 AM to 5 PM, but it is closed on weekends. Appreciate this survivor of Brooklyn history before we continue our stroll.
