Built for a new city
In 1898, the separate jurisdictions that became Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, and Staten Island were consolidated into Greater New York. The expanded government quickly outgrew City Hall, requiring more space. In July 1907, the State Legislature authorized a design competition for a new home for municipal government; in April 1908 the jury chose the entry by McKim, Mead and White, designed by junior partner William Mitchell Kendall. It was the firm's first skyscraper commission.
Construction began on July 17, 1909, and spanned roughly seven years. The site sat above the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company's planned Chambers Street terminal, making the building the first in New York to incorporate a subway station within its base. Engineers had to thread the foundation around tracks and platforms still being cut. The final cost: approximately $12 million in 1914 dollars, plus $6 million more for the land.
By mid-1913 the first sections were occupied and the BMT Chambers Street platform opened below. The finished building rose 580 feet across 40 stories and roughly 1 million square feet, housing about 4,200 city employees from a dozen agencies.
Civic Fame, the golden guardian
Civic Fame was sculpted by Adolph A. Weinman and fashioned in gilded sheet copper. Often described as 25 feet tall, she stands barefoot on a globe, holding a five-pointed mural crown representing the five boroughs, a laurel branch signifying fame or civic honor, and a shield bearing the seal or coat of arms of New York City.
The figure was installed atop the municipal building in March 1913. In 1991, she was removed, restored, regilded, and returned to the building. At the time of her installation, Civic Fame ranked among the largest statues in New York City; today she remains one of the city’s most prominent gilded architectural figures.
A legacy in full view
David N. Dinkins, born in 1927 in Trenton, New Jersey, was elected in 1989 and inaugurated on January 1, 1990. He was New York City's 106th mayor, the first African American to hold the office, following a distinguished public service career that included roles as state assemblyman, president of the Board of Elections, city clerk, and Manhattan borough president.
In 2015, the Manhattan Municipal Building was renamed in his honor, and after leaving office, he continued shaping public policy as a professor at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs. Mayor David N. Dinkins died at his home on November 23, 2020.
Today, at Centre 360, atop the building named in his honor, his legacy of service, equity, and unity rises into full view.
Mayor David N. Dinkins · 1990–1993