<p>The LaSalle Hotel is a hotel located in downtown Bryan, Texas, United States, a Texas cultural district. The hotel was opened in 1928 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 26, 2000.</p><br>
<p>At its opening in 1928, the seven-story hotel was the tallest building in Bryan. The LaSalle had one hundred guest rooms, a ballroom and meeting space (both have since been converted to guest rooms). Several businesses, including a tailor, a barber and a cafe were located on the first floor. Businessman and city leader R. W. Howell built the hotel and the Howell family owned the hotel for over thirty years. J. C. Jacques bought the property in 1959 and converted it into a nursing home. The home was open until 1975 and then became a resident hotel with small apartments until it closed in 1980. The LaSalle sat empty for seventeen years when a private developer with city backing began renovations. The hotel reopened in 2000, which started the revitalization of downtown Bryan. The hotel faltered though and the City of Bryan stepped in to keep it open.</p><br>
<p>The LaSalle currently has 55 rooms and suites and has been newly renovated into what it is now known as the luxurious LaSalle Boutique Hotel and Downtown Elixir and Spirits.</p><br>
<p>The house at 184 Albany Avenue  in Kingston, New York, United States, is a frame building in the Picturesque mode of the Gothic Revival architectural style. It was built around 1860.</p><br>
<p>In 2002 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It has remained a private residence since its original construction.</p><br>
<h2>Building</h2><br>
<p>The house sits on a long, narrow (80 by) lot on the east side of the street, a short distance north of the Kingston Stockade District and three houses south of Tremper Avenue. The neighborhood is exclusively residential, except for the nearby Sharp Burial Ground. A non-contributing pool and outbuilding are located behind the house.</p><br>
<p>It is a two-and-a-half-story building on a brick foundation. The clapboard siding rises to a steeply pitched mansard roof with two cross-gables. It is shingled in patterned slate. The rooflines are marked by heavily molded cornices, paired brackets and decorative friezes. The gables are topped with finials.</p><br>
<p>On the southwest corner of the west (front) facade is a one-and-a-half-story projecting bay. At the first story this features a bay window. A porch stretches across the rest of the facade at that story. Its roof is supported by three chamfered and paneled posts with brackets. The main entrance has leaded sidelights and an arched top light.</p><br>
<p>A similar bay, two and a half stories high, projects from the south side. It too has a bay window at ground level. A single-story rear wing projects from the east, adjacent to an enclosed porch now part of an expanded kitchen. The north profile has no projections or additions.</p><br>
<p>Inside, the house has a double-pile central hall plan. The first story retains much of its original finishing, such as carved newels and balusters on the stairs, molded door and window surrounds and decorated plaster cornices and ceilings. The second story also has its original plan and finishings; the attic has been renovated, opening up the space once used as servants&#39; quarters. It still has some of the original finishing.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The house is believed to have been built around 1860, probably following patterns in books by Andrew Jackson Downing, who had strongly promoted the Picturesque mode as an ideal for American residential construction during his lifetime. Few significant owners are known. In 1909 the city directory gives the owner as Charles Banker, a local osteopathic physician. In 1921 it was the property of Vincent Gorman and his wife, Margaret. Gorman was a founding partner of the city&#39;s Rose Gorman Rose department store. In 1965 the house was purchased by George and Bianca Vogel. Their family, which included 4 children, lived in the house for about 20 years.</p><br>
<p>The USA Post Office in Albion, New York, is located on South Main Street  in the center of town. It serves the 14411 ZIP Code, covering the village and town of Albion plus neighboring sections of the towns of Barre and Gaines.</p><br>
<p>It is a brick Colonial Revival building erected in the late 1930s. In the lobby is a mural of the nearby Erie Canal. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988 along with many other present and former post offices in the state. While it is within the boundaries of the Orleans County Courthouse Historic District, it is not considered a contributing property to that district since it was built after that district&#39;s period of significance. Note: This includes</p><br>
<h2>Building</h2><br>
<p>The post office is located on the southwest corner of the intersection of Main and East State streets in the center of Albion. Across from it is the county courthouse, screened by a small village green planted with mature trees. North of it is the Swan Library, an 1840 Greek Revival residence later converted into a Colonial Revival library; to the south is a former residence from the 1830s used now as the Cornell Cooperative Extension offices for the county. Across the intersection at the northeast corner is the First Presbyterian Church, a stone building with a 175 ft steeple, the tallest structure in Orleans County. Main Street descends slightly to the north, into Albion&#39;s other historic district, the more commercial North Main-Bank Streets area, ending at the New York State Barge Canal, the former route of the Erie Canal.</p><br>
<p>The building itself is a five-bay single-story structure on a stone water table faced in brick. The main block has a gently sloped gable roof, its fields finished in clapboard. set off by a denticulated cornice at the roofline and topped with a copper roof. It is pierced at the center by a square cupola with quoins, Doric pilasters at the corners framing six-over-six sash windows and an ogival cap with weathervane. The rear wing has the cornice but is flat-roofed. It has a parapet with limestone coping.</p><br>
<p>Limestone sills and lintels frame the 12-over-12 double-hung sash windows on all facades. A single lunette is located in each gable field. In the east face&#39;s frieze, bronze letters spelling out "UNITED STATES POST OFFICE" are located above the main entrance, with "ALBION" and "NEW YORK" on the brick below flanking the entrance arch. A datestone is at the northeast corner. Granite steps with original iron railings and lampposts, joined by a modern wheelchair ramp on the north, rise to the centrally located main entrance.</p><br>
<p>The entrance is flanked by two engaged fluted Doric pilasters and columns. They support an entablature with denticulated cornice to which a later piece of wood has been affixed with metallic letters saying "ZIP 14411". Above is a blind fanlight with an aluminum eagle.</p><br>
<p>Inside the modern double doors open into a wooden vestibule articulated by narrow paneled pilasters and multi-pane sash. The main lobby floor is of red and brown ceramic tile with a red border and buff wainscoting. Above that the walls and ceiling, including the cornice between them, is plaster. Many original features, including the screenline, metal grilles, lockboxes, interior doors and surrounds, two wooden customer tables, one set of lockboxes and a bulletin case. A mural depicting ships on the canal is high on the wall above the postmaster&#39;s office.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>From its designation as the new county&#39;s seat in 1824 through its days of prosperity as a canal town and the central shipping point for the Medina sandstone quarried nearby, Albion had managed to get by without its own post office building. In the early 20th century the mail was handled out of a rented storefront on East Bank Street. By the 1920s that became outmoded, and the postal authorities decided it was time for a dedicated building.</p><br>
<p>A 1931 amendment to the Public Buildings Act of 1926 authorized the new structure as a relief measure for the Depression. Ground was not broken until 1936, after two Greek Revival houses on the site were demolished. New York City contractors Andover & Associates built the new post office for a cost of $52,699 ($ in contemporary dollars). It opened in 1937.</p><br>
<p>Louis Simon, Supervising Architect at the Treasury Department, which had design responsibilities for most federal buildings, employed the same Colonial Revival design he had used for 12 other post offices in the state, the largest group of similar post offices across the state. This reflects both the Treasurys interest in standardization and its preference, during the Depression, for Colonial Revival as its preferred mode. The design of Albions post office is one of the most typical of that group, lacking some of the variations found at the others.</p><br>
<p>In 1939 Judson Smiths Along the Barge Canal mural was added to the lobby. It had been commissioned after he won one the competitions held by the Treasurys Section of Fine Arts, which oversaw the public art in post offices at the time. Other than the replacement of the original lobby lighting with more modern equipment, there have been few changes to the building since then.</p><br>
<p>Six decades later, when the Orleans County Courthouse Historic District, was created, its boundaries included the post office. Along with the county jail, it was one of the only two of the 35 properties in that district considered non-contributing to its historic character since it was built after the district&#39;s 1830–1910 period of significance. When the post office was listed on the National Register itself nine years later, it remained non-contributing despite its own status.</p><br>
<p>The USA Post Office in Medina, New York, is located at West Avenue and West Center Street . It is a brick building erected in the early 1930s, serving the ZIP Code 14103, covering the village of Medina and neighboring portions of the towns of Ridgeway and Shelby.</p><br>
<p>Its Colonial Revival style design is unique in the state, where many post office designs of the era were reused in different communities. Only in Salem, Indiana, was the design known to have been reused. In 1989 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places along with many other present and former post offices in the state. It is one of only two listed on the Register in Orleans County. The other is in Albion.</p><br>
<h2>Building</h2><br>
<p>The post office is located on the northeast corner of the intersection, on the western edge of downtown Medina, where commercial buildings transition to the residential areas of the village. The stone First Baptist Church, built in 1873, is on the southwest corner. On the northwest is an Italianate house that once housed the village&#39;s historical society, now just up Prospect near the Ridgeway town hall. Across West Center Street is a former gas station that has been converted into a branch bank, surrounded with a parking lot.</p><br>
<p>To the east is the main commercial area of the village, later listed on the National Register itself as the Main Street Historic District. On the west is a neighborhood with many of the village&#39;s older houses with a few more churches scattered among them. The terrain is generally level. There is a narrow grassy strip in front of the building, with small shrubs on the east and a large nut tree on the west. A driveway on the east leads to parking in the rear, also accessible from West Avenue north of the building.</p><br>
<p>The building itself is in two sections. On the south (front) is a one-story seven-by-one-bay main block. Its smooth-faced ashlar limestone exposed basement has granite-trimmed window wells with cast iron railings. Above it the post office is faced in brick with rust and blue accents laid in English bond and quoined at the corners. On top the hipped roof is shingled in slate.</p><br>
<p>Stone trim on the facade includes the flat windowsills, a belt course at the attic line, corner blocks on the iron grilled vents above it corresponding to the windows below, and a denticulated molded cornice with played corbels above that alternate with recessed scalloping. Atop it is a very low parapet, also stone, with a raised frontispiece at the center featuring a carved stone eagle.</p><br>
<p>The side elevations have a similar treatment. On the north is a three-by-three-bay rectangular wing with flat roof and plain stone cornice. Its windows have the same trim. A small one-by-two-bay wing on the north has a mailing platform on the east side.</p><br>
<p>Stone steps lead up from the sidewalk to the main entrance, where a wheelchair ramp goes off to the west. The main entrance door is flanked by partially engaged limestone Ionic columns. Above it is a frieze with "USA POST OFFICE" carved into it, flanked by carved rosettes. Atop is a molded cornice in a Greek fret pattern topped by a broken pediment with carved swan&#39;s neck, patera and large acorn finial.</p><br>
<p>The double glass doors open into an enameled vestibule with large windows and original interior doors. The lobby has mottled light brown marble wainscoting. Its plaster walls rise to a deep molded frieze and cornice at the ceiling. Other remaining original features are the grille above the door to the postmaster&#39;s office and the lockboxes. There is no mural or other public art in the building.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Medinas first post office was established in 1824, just before the opening of the Erie Canal. At that time it was operated out of Moores Tavern, a frequent stopover for both packet boat crews moored in the harbor created by the canal&#39;s bend at the village. By 1904 it had moved to rented space on West Center Street.</p><br>
<p>It was probably at that location in 1928 when Congress authorized a post office building for the village. After the Great Depression began the next year the project was funded. The land was purchased and the existing commercial buildings demolished in early 1931, and the post office opened the following year.</p><br>
<p>Louis A. Simon, Superintendent of Architects at the Office of the Supervising Architect under James A. Wetmore, was the designer. Simon&#39;s design for the Medina post office is, like many others he designed for small towns in New York and other states at that time, in the Colonial Revival style.</p><br>
<p>Unlike many of those other designs, this particularly ornate one was not reused anywhere else in the state. The only other known instance of its use is in Salem, Indiana. Some elements, such as the limestone belt course at attic level on a seven-bay front facade, did turn up on post offices in New York like the one in Saranac Lake, not listed on the Register due to its extensive alterations.</p><br>
<p>Mount Hope Estate is a National Register of Historic Places-listed property in Rapho and Penn Townships, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. The original estate was the center of operations of the Grubb Family Iron Dynasty during the 19th century and included over 2,500 acre, a charcoal iron furnace, a grist mill, housing for employees and tenants, plus supporting structures such as a post office, a general store, a railroad station, a school and a church. The existing mansion and grounds remain from what was once a thriving industrial headquarters complex and small village.</p><br>
<p>The mansion itself was originally constructed as a Federal-style home by the prominent family of iron masters; an 1895 remodeling transformed the structure with the addition of Victorian features. The mansion is constructed of locally quarried red sandstone, as are the outbuildings, which at one time numbered nearly 30. The grounds is also notable for its pre-1840 American formal garden, of which there are very few surviving. The estate currently hosts the Mount Hope Estate and Winery, the Swashbuckler Brewing Company, the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire, and other events held throughout the year (see below).</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The estate was the home and center of operations of the Grubb Family Iron Dynasty during the 19th century. The Mount Hope Grubbs were from an early American family whose founder, John Grubb, had come to America from Stoke Climsland, Cornwall, England and settled in Delaware. Johns youngest son Peter Grubb came to the local area about 1734, when he discovered the vast iron deposits in Lebanon County and purchased 300 acre. By 1742 he had founded the highly successful Cornwall Ironworks, named to recall his fathers ancestral home. By 1783 the familys holdings covered 10,000 acre. The property was split several times among heirs, and various lands passed between the Grubb and Coleman families in the late 18th century. In 1784, Peter Grubbs youngest son Peter Grubb, Jr. purchased an additional 212.5 acre and built a charcoal furnace at a place that he called "Mount Hope".</p><br>
<p>The Grubbs were locally prominent by at least 1784, and from 1840 to 1870 were the leading iron manufacturers in Pennsylvania, with Mount Hope Estate serving as the center of their operations. During this period the estate played host to many leading Pennsylvanians including the Shippen family, Episcopalian ministers including Bishop William White and Bishop Alonzo Potter, and other leading ironmasters including Robert Coleman. At the Grubb familys height in the mid-to-late 19th century, the estate included a charcoal furnace, mill workers houses, Mount Hope Episcopal Church (also called Hope Church, and "principally erected for the Grubb family"), the mansion, many stone outbuildings, and large formal gardens.</p><br>
<p>After the death of Henry Bates Grubb, the estate was managed by his widow, Harriet Amelia Buckley Grubb, until her children reached adulthood. In 1848&ndash;49, at a cost of about $2,000, she had an Episcopal church, known today as "Hope Church", erected on the property, "for the moral and spiritual uplift of the tenants on her estate and the employees of the Mount Hope Furnace". In 1885, Clement Brooke Grubb, one of Henry&#39;s sons, purchased the mansion and surrounding land for $300,000 from the heirs of his younger brother, Alfred Bates Grubb. That October, Clement gave the church and churchyard to the Episcopal Diocese of Central Pennsylvania.</p><br>
<p>Upon Clements death, he left it to his daughter, the last descendant of the Grubb family to own it, Daisy Elizabeth Brooke Grubb, who renovated the 32-room mansion in the Victorian architectural style. After Daisys death, the property was subdivided and passed through numerous owners until Charles Romito purchased the mansion and immediately surrounding land for $1 million in 1980 to open a winery.</p><br>
<h3>Mount Hope Estate and Winery</h3><br>
<p>After planting the vineyards and vinting wines, Romito opened the Mount Hope Estate and Winery in 1980. To promote his new business the first year, Romito hosted several events including an art show, a bluegrass concert, a fifties revival, a country-western weekend, a classical orchestra concert, and a one-day modern jousting tournament. The jousting tournament was so popular that Romito held a two-day renaissance festival the following year in the winery&#39;s parking lot, and gradually expanded this into a permanent attraction, the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire. The property was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1980, and in 1991 the boundaries were increased as part of the Iron and Steel Resources of Pennsylvania Multiple Property Submission (MPS).</p><br>
<h3>Architecture</h3><br>
<p>Two distinct architectural styles are visible in the Estate. Originally constructed in the Federal style for Henry Bates Grubb between 1800 and 1805, Mount Hope Estate was the most formal ironmaster&#39;s mansion built in the area between 1750 and 1850. In 1895, Daisy Grubb oversaw significant changes, adding a Victorian ballroom, a billiard room, chandeliers, and parquet floors, and converting original hinged doors to sliding doors, while still maintaining much of the original construction, including the original facade and fireplace mantels.</p><br>
<h3>Exterior</h3><br>
<p>The south-facing two-story facade, made of locally cut red sandstone, remains substantially unchanged from the original 1800–05 construction. The wooden porch running the length of the facade appears to be a reconstruction, as part of the 1895 remodeling, of a similar original porch.</p><br>
<p>The entire west end of the house went through substantial changes in the 1895 remodelling. This included the construction of a striking three-story bay window rising to an octagonal turret with a patterned roof, and a two-story bay window near the southwest corner. The most significant additions made during the 1895 remodelling are located at the rear (north) of the house. These include a conservatory with a polygonal glass dome, a greenhouse just east of the conservatory, and an enlarged kitchen. The eastern end of the house was also remodeled in 1895, in locally cut red sandstone to match the facade. Aside from several gothic arches from the original construction, the entire visible structure at this end was built in 1895.</p><br>
<h3>Interior</h3><br>
<p>The interior of the mansion, like the exterior, is a mixture of original 1800–05 construction and decoration, blended rooms, and Victorian construction and decor.</p><br>
<p>The entry hall is almost entirely original construction. Nearly all the woodwork and decoration in this area dates to the 1800&ndash;05 period, with the exception of several balusters and newel posts on the spiral staircase, which were Victorian replacements. The major change to the entry hall was the construction of false walls, allowing the conversion of the original hinged doors into sliding doors. The second floor central hall and Washington Room (on the second floor, in the southeast corner) were also changed very little in the renovation.</p><br>
<p>The dining room, on the other hand, saw extensive remodeling in 1895. The room size was increased by the construction of a bay window, parquet floor was installed, and the room was decorated in cherry woodwork, with a gilt and crystal chandelier and sconces. The only original item remaining left in the room was the fireplace mantel. The Pink Room, named for the pink damask which covered the walls in 1895, the library, the Best Chamber (Daisy Grubb&#39;s bedroom), was also extensively remodeled.</p><br>
<p>A number of new rooms were added to the house as part of the 1895 work. A billiard room and ballroom were added in the rear of the house, and several ornate bathrooms were added on the second and third floors.</p><br>
<h2>Grounds</h2><br>
<h3>Outbuildings</h3><br>
<p>At one time there were nearly 30 outbuildings on the estate, as well as a wall surrounding the estate, all constructed of the same locally quarried red sandstone as the mansion, "of which there seems to be an inexhaustible supply on the estate". Some of the buildings, like Hope Church, are on property that was given away or subdivided over the years, and today, only four remain on the estate, all located to the north (rear) and northeast of the mansion.</p><br>
<p>The smokehouse is a square two-story building with a hipped roof, and is believed to date to the early 19th century. East of the smokehouse, a 1-story building with a three bay facade and a gabled roof was used as a post office in the late 19th century, and may have served as a schoolhouse originally. The manager&#39;s farmhouse stands 2 stories high and is L-shaped with a porch. The springhouse is also 2 stories.</p><br>
<h3>Gardens</h3><br>
<p>The overall plan of the gardens, based on English formal gardens, can be traced to the original 1800&ndash;05 construction. Although some flower beds, ornamental urns, and the round fountain in front of the mansion were installed at the time of the 1895 remodeling, the overall plan was not changed, leaving the garden as "a very rare and largely intact example of a documented American formal garden predating 1840."</p><br>
<h2>Mount Hope Estate Craft Brands</h2><br>
<h3>Swashbuckler Brewing Company</h3><br>
<p>The Swashbuckler Brewing Company, founded by Mount Hope Estate & Winery&#39;s Managing Partner, Scott Bowser, began production in 2000 on the grounds of the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire with an annual capacity of 1,200 barrels. Originally located in the Swashbuckler Brew Pub (now known as the Anchor & Mermaid Tavern), the production facility quickly outgrew this facility and, in 2015, beer production was moved to a new on-site facility just outside the Fairegrounds called SBC Brewsmiths. With a current annual capacity of 1500 barrels, Swashbuckler Brewing Company continues to produce beers for the Mount Hope Estate events welcoming 250,000 guests annually.</p><br>
<h3>Mount Hope Winery</h3><br>
<p>In 1980, Mount Hope Winery opened for business in an effort to attract visitors to the estate. The vineyards and production were located in Lake Erie County until 2015 when Mount Hope winery returned production of its wines to Lancaster County when it acquired the assets of another winery that closed. In late 2016, Mount Hope began repurposes an existing barn located approximately 300 feet from the current Wine Shop and parallel to the Swashbuckler Brewery into a new winery facilities. The barn was originally built in the 1800s and rebuilt in 1908 after a fire. The ground floor of the new winery provides 9200 square feet of workable space for new equipment consisting of an additional 20,000 gallons, bringing total capacity to 40,000 gallons. Two 5200 gallon tanks stand outside the new production facility used for bulk juice storage for the wine and cider production. A 2000 square foot refrigeration unit, easily accessible with a fork lift, provides an area for cold stabilizing of the winery products.</p><br>
<h3>Lancaster County Cider</h3><br>
<p>At the start of 2016, Mount Hope introduced Lancaster County Cider to its beverage brands. Already popular with visitors to the Estates events, Lancaster County Cider is now available in the Mount Hope Wine Shop (Manheim), The Mount Hope Wine Gallery (Bird-in-Hand), the Mount Hope Wine Shop at Millers Smorgasbord (Ronks) and through distribution by Kirchner Beverage Distributor in Lancaster, PA. Lancaster County Cider began a 2016-2018 partner of the Reading Fightin Phils and supplies hard cider visitors to FirstEnergy Stadium through its Lancaster County Cider Stand located in the stadium&#39;s main grandstand.</p><br>
<h2>Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire</h2><br>
<p>In 1980, a jousting tournament was held in the parking lot of the newly opened winery, followed by a two-day Renaissance fair the following year. This gradually expanded to become the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire, which is now held over 12 weekends and draws more than 250,000 patrons annually. Featuring a recreation of a 16th-century Tudor village, a replica of the Globe Theatre, Shakespearean plays, musical acts, and artisans fashioning period items such as pottery and potpourri. In 1998, the faire was named one of the top 100 motorcoach-accessible events in America by the American Bus Association.</p><br>
<h2>Other events</h2><br>
<p>In addition to hosting the Renaissance fair, the grounds are opened to the public for a number of other events. Tours of the mansion and wine tastings are available throughout the year. Each June, the site is used for the Celtic Fling and Highland Games. The Fling features traditional and modern Celtic music, food, crafts, demonstrations and competitions, and a feis is also held. The Highland Games are officially sanctioned by the Mid-Atlantic Scottish Athletics Association, and include standard events such as caber tossing and hammer throwing.</p><br>
<p>In late fall and early winter, the mansion is host to several theatrical performances. From the end of October to mid-November, Poe Evermore, a storytelling event based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe is held. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, Victorian Christmas or A Dickens of a Christmas, the telling of the story of A Christmas Carol, is performed.</p><br>
<p>The house at 313 Albany Avenue , in Kingston, New York, United States is also known as the Hutton House. It is a frame house built near the end of the 19th century.</p><br>
<p>It is in the "Free Classical" mode of the Queen Anne architectural style, representing the period of transition from that style to the Colonial Revival style popular early in the 20th century. In 2002 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.</p><br>
<h2>Building</h2><br>
<p>The house is located on the west side of the street a short distance south of the Manor Avenue intersection in a residential neighborhood north of uptown Kingston. Across the street is the stone house at 322 Albany Avenue. It is on a narrow (50 by) lot that backs on woodlands that buffer Esopus Creek.</p><br>
<p>It is a two-and-a-half-story structure on a stone foundation. Siding is clapboard on the first story and wood shingles on the second. Atop is a steeply pitched gable roof.</p><br>
<p>The east (front) facade has two sections. The south one has a wraparound porch with fluted Ionic columns supporting a plain entablature. On the north is a bay window with a frieze decorated in neoclassical swag.</p><br>
<p>On the second story the facade presents two sets of windows, a pair on the south and three on the north. The shingles flare slightly above a belt course. On the third story, above a pent roof, there is imbrication and a finely detailed Palladian window.</p><br>
<p>The south profile has a projecting central bay with hipped roof. Its diverse fenestration includes a band of four leaded windows and an oculus with keyed frame. On the porch side it features a three-part window with segmented arch light.</p><br>
<p>On the north is a bay window similar to the one on the east, supporting a bumpout on the story above with another three-part window. Another small porch shelters an entrance on the west, and there is an inset entry on the southwest corner.</p><br>
<p>The first floor layout is a modified side-hall plan. The main entrance opens into a vestibule with a staircase featuring finely carved balusters and polished paneling. An archway supported by columns leads into the main parlor opposite the stair. Pocket doors separate the main space from the dining room. In the southwest corner of the rear parlor is a Queen Anne fireplace and mantel. Many other finishes remain on the first floor, such as the wood molding, wall plaster, architraves and wooden parquet floor. The second story has also kept most of its original plan and finish.</p><br>
<p>A garage behind the house has many similar elements. It is of modern construction and thus non-contributing to the National Register listing.</p><br>
<h2>History and aesthetics</h2><br>
<p>The house is recorded as having been built by a Mr. Hutton in 1896. At that time the Queen Anne style, based on the look of early 18th-century English vernacular architecture in which medieval buildings were updated with generous ornament, was maturing. Architects were beginning to add classically inspired ornaments, such as the porch columns and Palladian window on 313 Albany Avenue, to the Queen Anne vocabulary. This era, right before the turn of the 20th century, was known as the Queen Anne&#39;s "Free Classical" phase. Early in the new century this would lead to a more purely Georgian-inspired style, which eventually matured into the Colonial Revival.</p><br>
<p>Since its construction, 313 Albany Avenue has seen only one significant alteration, the removal of a wall between two parlors on the first floor during the 20th century in order to create a larger space. It has remained a private residence.</p><br>
<p>The Santa Fe Terminal Complex is an 18 acre complex of historic buildings in the Government District of downtown Dallas, Texas . Constructed in 1924 as the headquarters for the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway and the Southwest&#39;s largest merchandising center, three of the original four buildings remain today and have been renovated into various uses. Santa Fe Buildings No. 1 and No. 2 were listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1997, and the buildings are Dallas Landmarks. The Santa Fe Freight Terminal is regarded as one of the chief factors in the development of Dallas commercially.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The site chosen for the terminal complex was already owned by the railroad and served by tracks connecting with the East Dallas GC&SF yard. The original Santa Fe station in Dallas was built on the site in 1884 and replaced by the 1896 Richardsonian Romanesque passenger station. The latter was one of six depots belonging to different railroads which became redundant with the completion of Union Station in 1916. The depot was razed and a vast, 100,000 cubic yard excavation done with the equivalent of a box car load of dynamite.</p><br>
<p>Project architect Lloyd R. Whitson, working with engineers and railroad planners from the AT&SF, planned the complex so that four buildings, in a line running north to south from Commerce to Young Streets, could be served by up to three sets of underground railroad tracks branching from a central subsurface line, which emerged from the underground farther south near the present Dallas Convention Center.</p><br>
<p>The complex was constructed in 1924-25 as one of the more ambitious Texas building projects of the 1920s and one of the Southwest&#39;s largest merchandising centers. All four buildings were linked by a subterranean rail tunnel served by small steam locomotives. Construction of the buildings and the 750 ft underground freight house was a massive undertaking and work continued around the clock.</p><br>
<p>Building No. 1, also known as the Santa Fe Office Building, was constructed as the main building at 1114 Commerce Street and opened in late 1924. It contained 20 floors of offices and included a restaurant and drug store, and was the most elaborately decorated building of the complex. The structure featured several setbacks and ornamental arches designed in the Mission Revival style topped by a barrel vaulted roof. The office building provided some of the most desirable office space in Dallas in the 1925-42 period, housing many national corporations and representatives of insurance companies. The rear of the building connected to a 10-story warehouse wing fronting Jackson Street and served as the terminus of the freight depot.</p><br>
<p>Building No. 2, also known as the Garment Center, followed the same design as Building No. 1s warehouse. This structure was built as 10-story warehouses in light brown brick with large open industrial spaces and concrete columns. The building housed offices and showrooms for manufacturing companies, chemical companies, and building supplies. Near the end of construction, a 2-story structure was added on the roof of the building to serve as the clubhouse for the University Club, a major private mens club. A skybridge was erected to connect the member entrance on the eleventh floor of Santa Fe Building No. 1 with the clubhouse. The penthouse included an auditorium/great hall, library and dining room with bedrooms for resident members and nonresident members&#39; guests on the second level. Trees, shrubs and a putting green surrounded the clubhouse. Plans were made to expand the club to the roofs of Buildings No. 1 and No. 3, but the club only used the penthouse until the late 1930s. Radio station WFAA moved into and converted the former University Club space for a broadcast station in 1940.</p><br>
<p>Building No. 3 and Building No. 4 were similar in design to the other warehouses, with each being 8 stories in height and connected to the rail tunnel. Building No. 3, also known as the Ingram Freezer Building, was designed for cold storage.</p><br>
<h3>Rail operations</h3><br>
<p>Thirty-five to forty rail cars entered the tunnel each day, pulled by a "hot water bottle" locomotive. It was specially designed to prevent smoke in the main line and its six spurs in the tunnels by being charged with steam, which would last from four to five hours from a central, high pressure boiler under the office building. A 1924 Santa Fe Magazine article called the engine a "unique feature in locomotive construction, only one other of its type being in existence." They remained in service until about 1950, when diesel locomotives assumed the duty. Rail cars carried goods into the buildings and then the 21 freight elevators lifted merchandise to upper-level showrooms and first-floor trucking platforms.</p><br>
<h3>Change of ownership</h3><br>
<p>In 1942 the United States Government acquired Building No. 1 by eminent domain, converting portions of the building to serve as headquarters for the USA Army 8th Service Command as well as an enlistment center. Thousands of draftees, after reporting to the enlistment center in Building No. 1, proceeded to platforms beneath the buildings where they boarded trains bound for training centers. Informal sources suggest the building has among the strongest associations with the war effort of any building in North Texas.</p><br>
<p>After the government&#39;s acquisition of the complex, the warehouse buildings passed into various ownership. Construction of the nearby Dallas Convention Center severed the link to the main rail lines, and over time the warehouses became vacant. Santa Fe Building No. 3 was demolished in 1988 and replaced with a large parking lot. Santa Fe Buildings No. 1 and No. 2 were listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1997 and renovated over the years, although the isolated No. 4 building remained abandoned for many years.</p><br>
<h2>Current use</h2><br>
<p>Santa Fe Building No. 1 still houses offices for the federal government, with additional space in the adjacent Earle Cabell Federal Building and Courthouse. Santa Fe Building No. 2 was redeveloped into SoCo Urban lofts. Santa Fe Building No. 4, at the complex&#39;s southernmost point, reopened in 2009 as the downtown Dallas Aloft Hotel. Remnants of the tunnels still remain in the buildings today.</p><br>
<p>The Amelia Stewart House, also known as the Carol O. Wilkinson House and William Hallett House, is a historic residence in Mobile, Alabama, United States. It was built in 1835, with a significant Greek Revival style addition to the front built in 1871. The house was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 29, 1992, based on its architectural significance.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The original house was built in 1835 along Spring Hill Road (now called Springhill Avenue), in what was at the time well outside the city, but today sits firmly in the city&#39;s Midtown neighborhood. Merchant William R. Hallett built a large Greek Revival mansion with several outbuildings including a garçonnière for his sons. The main house burned in the 1860s, but the garçonnière survived. In 1871, the property was purchased by Amelia Stewart, who began construction of a new house adjoining the garçonnière.</p><br>
<p>In 2018, facing demolition to make way for a medical office building parking lot, the house was moved to 50 Common St., in the Common Street District.</p><br>
<h2>Architecture</h2><br>
<p>The front portion of the house dates to 1871, and was built in Greek Revival style to mimic the older Oakleigh House. The three-bay façade has the front door with transom and sidelights in the rightmost bay, and unique triple-hung sash windows in the other two. The porch is recessed under a pedimented gable resting on boxed columns. The balustrade, with its shallow tail cut joints was likely transferred from the 1830s garçonnière. The gable of the original house is partially visible from the front.</p><br>
<p>The interior features a side hall, at the end of which are steps to the 1835 structure, which is raised 2 feet higher than the newer section. Adjoining the hall two parlors with original trimwork and black marble mantels. The 1835 portion features Federal-style mantels.</p><br>
<p>The house at 322 Albany Avenue , in Kingston, New York, United States, is a stone building dating to the early 19th century. In the 1840s it was renovated in the Greek Revival architectural style.</p><br>
<p>Almost a century later it was renovated again, this time in the Colonial Revival style. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002.</p><br>
<h2>Building</h2><br>
<p>The house occupies a large lot on the east side of Albany between Manor and Ten Broeck avenues, just opposite 313 Albany Avenue. The neighborhood is primarily residential.</p><br>
<p>It is a two-story seven-by-two-bay building with a one-and-a-half-story frame rear wing topped by a gabled roof with a heavily molded, dentilled cornice pierced by a brick chimney. In the center of the first story on the west (front) facade is a one-bay porch. Its low hipped roof is supported by pairs of Ionic columns rising to a molded cornice and entablature. There is a projecting bay window on the south profile.</p><br>
<p>The paneled main wooden door has leaded sidelights and top. It leads to a center hallway, with a large parlor on the south. This room has much Greek Revival-era decoration, such as its architraves, mantels and the newels and balusters on its staircase. The west parlor on the north side, currently used as the dining room, has similar finishes, and the northeast one has Colonial Revival elements. The upper floor and attic are also mostly original to their era of construction or renovation.</p><br>
<p>In the rear of the lot are a swimming pool, work shed, and a former garage now used as an apartment. They are non-contributing to the National Register listing.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The house&#39;s structural origins are in the early 19th century, probably around 1820. The north gable is believed to be the most intact portion of the house from this time, due to the less refined and more weathered character of the stone there compared to the south. Due to subsequent expansions and renovations it is impossible to tell what its original plan was.</p><br>
<p>In the 1840s, its then-owner expanded it in the then-popular Greek Revival style, a common occurrence with many small older houses at that time. Much of its interior decoration was added during that construction.</p><br>
<p>Ninety years later, in the 1930s, another owner expanded the house, this time in the Colonial Revival style. The rear wing was added, new stonework was put in on the south and on the first floor a wall was removed to make a larger space of one of the parlors. The northeast parlor was also decorated in that style. The most visible Colonial Revival touch from that work is the front porch with its classically inspired columns and entablature.</p><br>
<p>At that time, the city was encouraging the restoration and preservation of its remaining colonial architecture. One of those most involved in this effort was local architect Myron Teller. It is not known whether he had anything to do with the work at 322 Albany Avenue, but the attention to detail and the quality of the work suggest his influence.</p><br>
<p>The Edisen Fishery is a fishery located in Rock Harbor in the Isle Royale National Park in Michigan. It was designated a Michigan State Historic Site in 1976 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977.</p><br>
<h2>Description</h2><br>
<p>The Edisen Fishery is a collection of seven buildings making up a commercial fishery. The complex includes a single-story fish house and net house, cabins, a chicken coop, whaleboat, and ancillary docks and fishing equipment. All buildings are constructed from logs covered with tongue-and-groove siding.</p><br>
<p>Fish House: The fish house is a one-story gable roof building constructed half of horizontal logs with saddle notching, and half of frame construction with vertical flushboarding. It was constructed in 1900.</p><br>
<p>Residence: The house was also built in about 1900. It is a small one-story combination horizontal log and shiplapped building, with a gable roof and on a log foundation. There are two entrances to the three-room house, with random window locations. The interior has wooden tongue-in-groove floors.</p><br>
<p>Net House: The net house was constructed in 1895. It is a single-story building, built as a combination of saddle-notched, horizontal log construction on one half and a frame structure with a shed roof with horizontal planks on the other. The exterior is sheathed with tarpaper, and there is a simple plank door.</p><br>
<p>"Honeymoon" Cabin: An auxiliary sleeping cabin, built in 1925 by Peter Edisen. It is a one-story, one room, frame shiplapped structure built on a log foundation with a gable roof. A simple, two-paneled door is located on one elevation, and a small window on another.</p><br>
<p>Sleeping Cabin: Another sleeping cabin dates to 1895. It is a one-story building constructed of horizontal logs with saddle notching, and chinked with moss and cloth. It has a gable roof covered with asphalt. One elevation contains a vertical plank door.</p><br>
<p>Chicken Coop: The chicken coop was built in 1934. It is a frame, horizontal flushboarded building with a shallow-pitched gabled roof and log foundation. It contains a plank door and several windows.</p><br>
<p>Privy: The privy is of later construction, and is a frame building with horizontal plank walls and a shed roof sheathed with asphalt shingles. A vertical plank door is in one elevation.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>In the 1880s, the fishing industry around Isle Royale was booming due to the relative ease of shipping goods via refrigerated rail cars. The fishing population was composed primarily of Scandinavians fishing at Isle Royale in the April–November months, and returning to their homes on shore during the winter. Two such fishermen, a Mr. Mattson and Mr. Anderson, established this fishery, building a log cabin and net house in 1895, and a main residence and fish house in 1900. The buildings were constructed using easily available local materials and built using strictly functional designs. The fishery was in fact named for Pete Edisen, one of the last commercial fishermen on Isle Royale.</p><br>
<p>The Johnsons and Edisens added a sleeping cabin and chicken coop to the complex in 1925 and 1934, respectively. The Edisens lived in the net house until 1951, when they moved into the main residence and the net house was converted back to its original use. As of 2009, the fishery is still operational and open to the public.</p><br>
<p>The Houghton County Traction Company Ahmeek Streetcar Station is a rail station located at the corner of US 41/M-26 and Hubbell Street in Ahmeek, Michigan. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2000.</p><br>
<h2>Houghton County Traction Company</h2><br>
<p>The Houghton County Traction Company was started in 1900 as an interurban line in the Keweenaw Peninsula. The first section of track ran from Hancock to nearby Boston; in 1901, the line was extended to Calumet. During the next few years, a spur was built running to Lake Linden and Hubbell, and in 1908 the line was extended to just north of Mohawk.</p><br>
<p>The Houghton County Traction Company remained in business until 1932, in the depths of the Great Depression.</p><br>
<h2>Station History</h2><br>
<p>The Ahmeek Station is one of the original trolley stops of the Houghton County Traction Company, which served Ahmeek and the surrounding location. The original stop in Ahmeek was a simple shelter. However, in 1909 the Allouez Mining Company leased land to the Houghton County Traction Company to construct a sub-station and waiting at this location. A building was constructed that year, but almost immediately outgrew its space. In 1910, the Traction Company constructed a small addition, which has since been removed. In 1931, Highway 41 was widened by the Michigan Department of Transportation, and the entire building was moved approximately 40 feet west to the other side of the railroad tracks.</p><br>
<p>After the rail line folded, the station was used for various purposes, including a bus stop and gas station. An ice cream window has been in place since the 1950s and in summer 2011, a local non-profit organization called Keweenaw Natural Areas opened a visitor center in what was the waiting room. The current owners also just finished renovating the entire original building, including the apartment upstairs that the original operators of the station lived in.</p><br>
<h2>Description</h2><br>
<p>The Houghton County Traction Company Ahmeek Streetcar Station is a rectangular wood-framed two-story building with a gabled roof and clapboard siding. A single story wing with two garage doors faces the highway. The front of the building has a pair of doors in the center and large windows are at each end of the first floor. Above are four 1/1 double hung windows. One of the first floor windows has a walk-up sliding window with a shed roof overhang. The rear of the building was originally the site of the train platform.</p><br>
<p>Inside, the first floor contains a large waiting room, now serving as a seating area for a restaurant, and a kitchen area one end along with restrooms. The main room is finished with headboard below a chair rail and has a tongue and groove headboard ceiling. The upstairs area was originally the stationmaster&#39;s apartment, and contains a kitchen, living room, two bedrooms, and a bathroom.</p><br>
<p>The Phillipi House, also known as the Mastin House, is a historic residence in Mobile, Alabama, United States. The two-story brick masonry structure was completed in 1850. It is built in a traditional Mobile townhouse style with a Greek Revival door surround and a second floor cast iron balcony across the front elevation. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 5, 1984, based on its architectural significance.</p><br>
<p>Kent Plantation House is the oldest standing structure in Central Louisiana. Listed since 1971 in the National Register of Historic Places, Kent House is located in Alexandria in Rapides Parish. The plantation house is a representation of southern plantation life between 1795 and 1855. The main structure was erected in 1800 with the labor of people enslaved by Pierre Baillio. The bousillage Creole house and restored period outbuildings are now a showcase for tourists.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Kent Plantation House displays original artifacts from people who worked and lived at the house during its operation.</p><br>
<h3>Buildings</h3><br>
<p>H. Parrott Bacot, former director of the Anglo-American Art Museum at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, led the interior restoration.</p><br>
<p>The several outbuildings surrounding the main structure are furnished with Federal, Sheraton, and Empire pieces.</p><br>
<p>The Milk House was built between 1820 and 1830; dairy products, such as cheese, milk, and butter, were prepared and stored there. The Slave Cabin shows the primitive conditions in which the slaves at the plantation lived. The Blacksmith Shop was constructed about 1815. The Kitchen contains an open hearth fireplace for cooking.</p><br>
<h3>Marker Text</h3><br>
<p>The marker at the front entrance of the Kent Plantation House reads:</p><br>
<p>Kent House, the oldest known standing structure in Rapides Parish, was built by Pierre Baillio, completed in 1800. Baillio constructed the house on land received through a Spanish land grant circa 1794.</p><br>
<p>The house was actually built by enslaved people, not Ballio himself.</p><br>
<p>The Dunlap coke ovens are the remnants of a coke production facility near Dunlap, in the USA state of Tennessee. Built in the early 1900s, the facility consists of five batteries of 268 beehive ovens, which operated under various companies until the early 1920s. The ovens are now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and are maintained by the Sequatchie Valley Historical Society as part of Dunlap Coke Ovens Park.</p><br>
<p>The rise of the steel industry during the Industrial Revolution brought about an exponential increase in the demand for coke, a fuel derived from the carbonization of coal that was used primarily in the production of pig iron. The Dunlap coke facility, which converted coal mined atop Fredonia Mountain into coke for use in blast furnaces in nearby Chattanooga, brought drastic change and modernization to Dunlap and the central Sequatchie Valley, the economy of which had long been based on subsistence agriculture. While the ovens themselves are all that remain from Dunlap&#39;s coke production operations, the Sequatchie Valley Historical Society has redeveloped the coke ovens area into a substantial public park and museum.</p><br>
<h2>Location</h2><br>
<p>The Sequatchie Valley is a long, narrow anticline valley carved into the southern section of the Cumberland Plateau. Dunlap, the county seat of Sequatchie County, is located near the center of the valley. The relatively steep walls of the Plateau rise roughly 1,000 ft above the valley floor, which is traversed by the Sequatchie River. Fredonia Mountain, a section of the western valley wall, rises steeply a few miles west of Dunlap. The Dunlap Coke Ovens are situated at the base of Fredonia Mountain, along a stream known as Coops Creek. The ovens and surrounding park are located on Mountain View Road, just under a mile west of downtown Dunlap.</p><br>
<h2>The Dunlap ovens and the coking process</h2><br>
<p>The Dunlap coke ovens facility consists of five batteries— four "double" batteries of ovens built back-to-back in staggered formation, and one "single" battery of ovens resting against an embankment. The batteries are all approximately 9 ft tall and 35 ft wide, and range in length from 180 ft to 725 ft. The largest battery contains 100 ovens built back-to-back, and the smallest battery contains 24 built back-to-back. The lone "single" battery contains 38 ovens, and measures 580 ft. Each battery rests on a foundation of clay.</p><br>
<p>The ovens themselves are 12 ft in diameter, with sandstone exteriors and firebrick interiors. Each oven has an opening at the top and a "window" on the side. In the early 1900s, railroad tracks ran across the top of each battery. An incline railway connected the ovens to a coal mine further up the mountain slope, and railroad cars would carry coal from the mine to the tops of the batteries and dump the coal into the ovens&#39; top openings.</p><br>
<p>During the coking process, a laborer would level the deposited coal through the side window using a scaper. Once the coal was ready, the side window would be sealed with clay, leaving a 1 in opening to allow the entry of air. The process, which essentially involves heating bituminous coal in a closed chamber to remove its volatile material, took about 72 hours. At the end of the process, the clay seal was broken, and the coke was removed and placed on a train for shipment to an iron furnace in Chattanooga. Two tons of coal typically produced one ton of coke.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The arrival of the railroad in the 1880s brought major coal mining operations to the southern Cumberland Plateau. Coal was first mined on Fredonia Mountain in 1899, although it was considered too soft for domestic purposes. By 1902, Douglas had constructed the first 50 coke ovens, developed several coal mines, built the incline railway, and had established a company town with a commissary and clubhouse. The company suffered from labor problems, however, and never quite developed a method of separating the dirt from the coal. In 1904, Douglas halted operations.</p><br>
<p>The Chattanooga Iron and Coal Company purchased the Douglas operation in 1905, and the following year built a steam-powered coal washer and constructed additional coke ovens. Chattanooga Iron and Coal owned quarries in Georgia and a blast furnace in the Tannery Flats section of Chattanooga. At its blast furnace, the company used coke from its Dunlap operation to convert iron ore mined at its Georgia quarries into pig iron. The operation proved profitable until 1916, when a boiler explosion destroyed its coal washer. The company built a new washer and added more coke ovens that year, but the cost and poor performance of the new washer drained the company financially. In 1919, the company sold its entire iron and coke operation to the Southern States Iron and Coal Company.</p><br>
<p>By 1920, Dunlap effectively consisted of two towns, just under a mile apart. Dunlap proper (the towns courthouse square and downtown area) had a population of 765, whereas the company town operated by Southern States Iron and Coal (at the present coke ovens park site) had a population of 700. The companys 350-man Dunlap workforce included a sizeable African-American population that was segregated. The coke ovens required a crew of 85 to remain in full operation. Southern States Iron and Coal produced coke at Dunlap until 1922, when it shut down its Dunlap operations. In 1928, brothers E.P. and E.K. Rosamund purchased Southern States&#39; Dunlap properties with plans to revive the coke operation, but with the onset of the Great Depression and plummeting coal prices, their plans never materialized.</p><br>
<h2>Dunlap Coke Ovens Park</h2><br>
<p>After the 1920s, the Dunlap Coke Ovens lay dormant for over a half century. By the 1980s, all that remained of the Dunlap operations were the ovens, a slate pile and coal washer ruins, two company houses (drastically modified), and the clubhouse. Some of the ovens retained only their sandstone frame, some retained only their brick interiors, and some had collapsed entirely.</p><br>
<p>In 1985, the ovens were added to the National Register of Historic Places. The property, which had come under the ownership of the Bowater Corporation, was donated to the Sequatchie Valley Historical Association later that same year. With the help of hundreds of volunteers, the association cleared tons of trash from the area, and the Dunlap Coke Ovens Park opened in 1987. To raise funds for park staffing and maintenance, the Sequatchie Valley Historical Association built an amphitheater adjacent to one of the oven batteries, and held its first annual Coke Ovens Bluegrass Festival. In 1989, the park received $71,000 (~$ in ) from the estate of Rhea County historian David Henry Gray, which it used to reconstruct the commissary on its original foundation. The reconstructed building now houses the Coke Ovens Museum.</p><br>
<p>Along with the museum, ovens, and amphitheater, Dunlap Coke Ovens Park includes a coal mine replica with mining machinery on display, the ruins of the 1906 coal washer, a replica of the Dunlap depot, a caboose, and various park shelters. A hiking trail now follows the incline railway grade to the former mining areas atop Fredonia Mountain.</p><br>
<h2>Annual bluegrass festival</h2><br>
<p>The park&#39;s signature event is the annual bluegrass festival, which takes place the first weekend in June. The event attracts bands and fans from around the region, including the strong bluegrass community in Chattanooga. The festival continues the long friendship between bluegrass musicians and the historical association. Local pickers played an integral role in the development of the park from the beginning, providing effort, connections, and entertainment to help with clean-up, construction, and fundraising. The event is promoted as family-friendly.</p><br>
<h2>Documentary</h2><br>
<p>In 2008, filmmaker Charli Wyatt produced a half-hour program about the park and bluegrass festival. "Coke Ovens Slaves" tells the story of the volunteers and musicians who work to preserve local history and culture through the Coke Ovens park and festival. The program aired several times on Chattanoogas PBS station, WTCI. A DVD was also released locally. The title of the film refers to a song written by Ed Brown, the festivals music director and an original member of the historical society.</p><br>
<h2>Bluegrass monument</h2><br>
<p>In 2008, a group of local bluegrass fans erected and dedicated a monument to those bluegrass musicians who have performed at the park or in the Sequatchie Valley. Musicians&#39; names are inscribed on stone slabs on each side of the monument.</p><br>
<p>The Germantown Colony and Museum is a museum and historical preservation project in Webster Parish, Louisiana about 7 mi north of Minden in northwestern Louisiana, USA. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as Germantown in 1979.</p><br>
<p>Germantown was the earliest religious communal settlement in Louisiana. It was founded in 1836 by Germans, adherents to ideas of religious leader Maximilian Ludwig (1788-1834), the "Count of Leon", and it lasted as a commune until 1871. Its founding was led by Elisa Leon (d.1881), the "Countess of Leon", widow of Maximilian Ludwig. In the colony, all property was owned in common and observance of religious principles was required. Though the colony was not very large, only about thirty-five people, it worked together and prospered. Its pacificism and general privation contributed to hardship during the American Civil War which contributed to its ending.</p><br>
<p>Germantown once had numerous houses, barns, stores, and shops, as well as a kitchen-dining hall and a "bachelors hall". The historic buildings are mostly gone; the listing included just two contributing buildings: Countess Leons home and the kitchen-dining hall, both built of hewn logs with dovetailing at their corners. The kitchen-dining hall has a dry wall stone cellar and an adjacent frame shack. Many windows have been replaced, and none of the porches are original. These surviving historic buildings, and sympathetic rustic others, still "convey in their crude and primitive character something of the life style of the Germantown settlers."</p><br>
<p>The site also includes a barn and other buildings deemed non-contributing, a log cabin which includes a bathroom, and a well.</p><br>
<p>In 2022 the site, several miles off USA 79 and about nine miles north of Interstate 20, continues to be operated as a museum.</p><br>
<p>The Frank M. Johnson Jr. Federal Building and United States Courthouse is a United States federal building in Montgomery, Alabama, completed in 1933 and primarily used as a courthouse of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama. The building is also known as United States Post Office and Courthouse—Montgomery and listed under that name on the National Register of Historic Places. In 1992, it was renamed by the United States Congress in honor of Frank Minis Johnson, who had served as both a district court judge and a court of appeals judge. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2015.</p><br>
<h2>Building history</h2><br>
<p>By 1929, there was an acute need for a new federal building in Montgomery. Federal offices were crowded, outdated, and scattered throughout the city. The United States Congress authorized funding for a new building in 1930, and the government purchased a lot containing the Court Street Methodist Church for $114,000 in 1931. The congregation relocated and the church was razed. The government, which had been authorized under a 1930 amendment to the Public Buildings Act of 1926 to hire private architects, selected Frank Lockwood of Montgomery to design the building. The Office of the Supervising Architect under James A. Wetmore oversaw the project. Lockwood had completed a number of important projects in Montgomery, including the wings of the Alabama State Capitol and the Carnegie Library. The cornerstone was laid in a Masonic service on July 16, 1932, and the building, which included a post office, was completed and occupied the following year.</p><br>
<p>In 1978, the post office moved to a new downtown facility. Over time, the remaining tenants required additional space and an annex designed by Barganier Davis Sims Architects Associated, a Montgomery firm, was completed in 2002.</p><br>
<p>In 1992, the building was renamed the Frank M. Johnson Jr. Federal Building and United States Courthouse to honor one of the countrys most distinguished judges who presided there for nearly three decades. President Dwight Eisenhower had appointed Frank M. Johnson Jr. to the position of district judge for the middle district of Alabama in 1955. Johnson ruled on a series of cases challenging Alabamas systematic racial discrimination. In 1956, Johnson ruled that segregated seating on Montgomery&#39;s buses was unlawful, justifying the Montgomery bus boycott. He also ruled in 1965 that it was legal for the Civil Rights march from Selma to Montgomery to proceed. In 1979, President Jimmy Carter elevated him to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, on which he served until he was reassigned to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in 1981. Johnson assumed senior status in 1991 and remained active until his death.</p><br>
<p>In 1997, the Annex received the Citation Award from the American Institute of Architects Committee on Architecture for Justice. The building was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1998, and in 2015 it was additionally designated a National Historic Landmark.</p><br>
<h2>Architecture</h2><br>
<p>The building is located on a parcel of land bounded by Lee, Court, Clayton, Catoma, and Church streets, and the historic Montgomery Bus Station, where a mob attacked the Freedom Riders in 1961. The rising terrain and trapezoidal block give the building a dramatic and commanding site that is intensified by dignified and impressive architecture.</p><br>
<p>Architect Frank Lockwood Sr., designed the building in the Renaissance Revival style of architecture. The building&#39;s design conveys the dignity and stability of the federal government, which was particularly important during the Great Depression. It does not, however, contain excessive or exuberant ornamentation considered inappropriate for a somber period in American history. The quality materials and craftsmanship inspired confidence as citizens witnessed this major construction effort. Characteristics of the style include the rusticated first story, arched openings, tile roof, and columns and pilasters.</p><br>
<p>The building is five stories tall and has an essentially U-shaped footprint with an interior lightwell. The first level is clad in large rusticated limestone blocks atop a granite base, and the upper stories are covered in smooth limestone ashlar. The rear elevation is clad in limestone, with the interior of the lightwell clad in buff-colored brick.</p><br>
<p>The symmetrical principal facade faces Church Street. It is dominated by two pediments at each end that are supported by four monumental engaged Doric columns. A frieze with incised triglyphs and a dentil (rectangular block) course is found beneath the pediments. The Lee Street elevation features a colonnade of eight Doric columns, while the Court Street elevation contains three-story pilasters. Entrances have bronze doors with pediments decorated with eagles and floral scrolls.</p><br>
<p>Round-arch openings on the first story have articulated voussoirs. Remaining windows on the upper stories are rectangular; those on the second story are topped by either carved surrounds or pediments. The shallow hipped roof is covered with red terra-cotta tiles. A penthouse originally used as a weather station occupies the roof. The interior boasts an elaborate L-shaped public lobby on the first floor. The floor is covered with travertine marble trimmed in green Maryland marble. Walls are clad in Briar Hill, Ohio, sandstone, and ceilings are coffered plaster with gold leaf. Original brass postal service windows and bronze grilles remain.</p><br>
<p>The most significant interior space is the USA District Courtroom, where Judge Johnson presided, on the second floor. Limestone arches surround the windows. A stone niche behind the judges bench is painted with white stars on a blue field. A stenciled wood ceiling, designed in the Italian Renaissance style, tops the room. It was repainted and re-gilded in the 1970s. A fourth-floor appellate courtroom is paneled in black walnut, which was also used in judges chambers in the original building.</p><br>
<p>Other original interior spaces include elevator lobbies, judges&#39; chambers, and the district law library. Terrazzo and marble floors, marble wainscot, bronze elevator doors with bas-relief panels, and bronze radiator grilles are found throughout the building.</p><br>
<p>The Annex, which was completed in 2002, has a radial design that is stylistically compatible with the original building. The Annex contains judges&#39; chambers, district courtrooms, and bankruptcy courts. Between 2002 and 2006, the original building was renovated and the interior spaces reconfigured to accommodate the needs of the court.</p><br>
<h2>Significant events</h2><br>
<p>1933: Construction completed</p><br>
<p>1956: Judge Johnson strikes down legality of segregated bus seating</p><br>
<p>1955: Frank M. Johnson Jr. appointed District Judge</p><br>
<p>1965: Judge Johnson rules the Selma to Montgomery march can proceed</p><br>
<p>1978: Post Office vacates building</p><br>
<p>1992: Building renamed to honor Judge Johnson</p><br>
<p>1997: Annex receives Citation Award from the American Institute of Architects Committee on Architecture for Justice</p><br>
<p>1998: Building listed in the National Register of Historic Places</p><br>
<p>2002: Annex completed</p><br>
<p>2015: Designated a National Historic Landmark</p><br>
<h2>Building facts</h2><br>
<p>Location: 15 Lee Street</p><br>
<p>Architects: Frank Lockwood Sr. Barganier Davis Sims Architects Associated</p><br>
<p>Construction dates: 1932–1933; 1996–2002</p><br>
<p>Architectural style: Renaissance Revival</p><br>
<p>Landmark Status: Listed in the National Register of Historic Places</p><br>
<p>Primary materials: Limestone, granite, and brick</p><br>
<p>Prominent features: District Courtroom, colonnade</p><br>
<p>Sugarloaf Mound is the sole remaining Mississippian culture platform mound in St. Louis, Missouri, a city commonly referred to in its earlier years as "Mound City" for its approximately 40 Native American earthen structures.</p><br>
<p>Sugarloaf Mound is the last remaining of the mounds built within present-day St. Louis by a Native American culture that thrived in the area from A.D. 600–1300. It is the oldest human-made structure in the city of St. Louis.</p><br>
<h2>Background</h2><br>
<p>One of the city&#39;s best-known earthen structures, "Big Mound" was razed in the mid-1800s following a sale of the land to the North Missouri Railroad.</p><br>
<p>According to Drury: The Historical Guide to North American Railroads etc, 1994, cited in Wabash Railroad, the "North Missouri ran into financial difficulty in 1871; it was succeeded in 1872 by the St. Louis, Kansas City and Northern Railroad." In preparation for the 1904 World&#39;s Fair, an additional sixteen mounds were destroyed. Today, about 80 mounds are preserved in the nearby Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site directly across the Mississippi River. Sugarloaf Mound is the only one that remains of the original approximately 40 mounds in St. Louis. The mounds were constructed by Native Americans that lived in the St. Louis area from about 600 to 1300 AD, the same civilization that built the mounds at Cahokia. Sugarloaf Mound is on the National Register of Historic Places.</p><br>
<h2>Description</h2><br>
<p>The mound got its name in the 18th century when St. Louisans noticed the shape resembled the loaves that sugar was transported in. Although the mound has not been excavated, it is assumed that the mound was used for burials, but it may also have been a ceremonial site or the location of a chief&#39;s home.</p><br>
<p>Sugarloaf Mound measures approximately 40 ft in height, 100 ft north/south and 75 ft east/west. The mound overlooks the Mississippi River, where Interstate 55 meets South Broadway. It is now located entirely within the incorporated City of St. Louis, but used to be on the border between St. Louis and the formerly autonomous city of Carondelet. In 1809 the mound was used as a survey landmark when St. Louis was incorporated.</p><br>
<h2>Modern history</h2><br>
<p>A residence was constructed abutting the top level of Sugarloaf Mound in 1928 by Frederick and Nellie Adams, bearing the mailing address of 4420 Ohio Street. In the 1930s, the widow Nellie Adams, dressed in black, would still drive a horse and buggy around the area. Mrs. Adams died in 1948 in her nineties. The next owner of the house was Oliver Schauenberg with his wife Anna. He owned the house until 1962, when he sold it to Walter and Eileen Strosnider. The Strosniders owned it nearly half a century until they returned the mound to Native American ownership, selling it to the Osage Nation. Portions of the mound had been impacted by a quarry and the construction of Interstate 55, but due to the stewardship of the previous homeowners, major mound destruction was avoided. Vacant since 2009 and deteriorating, the house upon the mound has been dismantled and removed as of September 2017.</p><br>
<p>As of November 2024, the second of three residences built on the three tiered Sugarloaf Mound has committed to return to the Osage. The owner of the home on the second tier, Joan Heckenberg, has agreed to return her property to the Osage. This leaves only one remaining residence on the lower level, owned by a pharmaceutical fraternity, Kappa Psi.</p><br>
<p>The home and land was purchased by the Osage Nation in 2009, with the stated intention of preservation of Sugarloaf Mound. The term "preservation" refers to the intention to restore Sugarloaf Mound to a condition similar to its configuration before the advent of Non-Native American architectural embellishments and razings. The Osage Nation does not claim a direct link to the construction of the mound, but claims a kindred heritage of mound building in the American Midwest.</p><br>
<p>Ultimately, the Osage Nation wants to clear the structures from the mound and build an interpretive center to the north of the mound, on property now owned by the Missouri Department of Transportation.</p><br>
<p>The Powers Church is a historic church in York Township, Steuben County, Indiana, described as a "fine example of early northern Indiana Colonial Revival architecture". In 1983, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places, where it is listed as Free Church, a reference to the Church&#39;s non-denominational nature.</p><br>
<p>The church was built between 1875 and 1876 for $1827 on land donated by the Powers family, one of the earliest settlers in the area.Steuben Republican (1937) "Powers Reunion Held on Sunday at Old Farm Site", July 21, 1937, p. 9.</p><br>
<p>In the 1920s, a dwindling congregation brought an end to the regular services, although the church was still used for funerals and other events until the 1950s, when it was closed. The building sat unused until 1976, at which time a restoration effort was undertaken. Restorers found that many of the original furnishings were still serviceable, including the oak and butternut woodwork and pews as well as the carpet. The steeple was most in need of restoration.</p><br>
<p>In 1978, the church was again opened to the public, starting an annual tradition of three monthly non-denominational services – June, July, and August – led by area ministers and featuring local musicians, and often followed by an ice cream social.</p><br>
<p>The building consists of only two rooms: a small anteroom which leads, via two flanking doors, to the much larger sanctuary. The steeple is accessed via a rough-hewn ladder in the anteroom. Behind the church, to the east, stands a boulder commemorating the arrival of the Powers settlers in 1837, and beyond that lies the 10.241 acre Powers Cemetery, where the first burials date from 1839, nearly 40 years before the church.Haynie, Devon (2009) "", Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, July 19, 2009, accessed August 2009.</p><br>
<p>The Tousley-Church House is located on North Main Street  in Albion, New York, United States. It is a brick house in the Greek Revival architectural style built in two different stages in the mid-19th century.</p><br>
<p>It shows the strong influence of Minard Lafever, a prominent contemporary practitioner of the style, although its own architect is not known. For many years it was owned by descendants of Sanford E. Church, a local politician who was prominent statewide. Since 1930 it has been the headquarters of the local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR). In 2002 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.</p><br>
<h2>Building</h2><br>
<p>The Tousley-Church House is located in an 0.8 acre lot on the northeast corner of North Main and Linwood Avenue, in the section of the village of Albion north of the Erie Canal (now part of the New York State Barge Canal), in the Town of Gaines. The terrain is level. The surrounding neighborhood is residential, with most houses dating to the late 19th or early 20th centuries.</p><br>
<p>Mature trees on the front lawn provide shade. A narrow sandstone walk leads from the sidewalk on North Main to the house&#39;s main entrance. An unpaved parking area in the rear is accessed through a curb cut on Linwood.</p><br>
<h3>Exterior</h3><br>
<p>The house, the only building on the property, consists of three sections, a main block and south wing, both brick, and a frame rear wing to the east. The main block is a one-and-a-half-story structure on a fieldstone foundation with an ashlar limestone water table. The brick above is laid in common bond. It rises to a wide wooden frieze below the hipped roof surfaced in bitumen, pierced by four brick chimneys near the corners.</p><br>
<p>In the southerly two of the three bays on the west (front) facade, the windows are set off by plain stone sills and lintels with black wooden louvered shutters. The wide frieze is topped with a dentil molding topped by bead and reel molding. Above the windows are grilles in the shape of Greek keys with hinged windows behind them.</p><br>
<p>The north bay has a small projecting portico sheltering the main entrance. The steps leading up to it and its deck are made of large gray limestone blocks. Wide cheek walls on either side of the stairs have a quarter-round profile following the steps fall line to identical square stone pedestals topped with cap blocks, currently holding large flower pots, identical to the plinth blocks underneath the two wooden fluted Ionic columns supporting the porticos hipped roof. It has an elaborate entablature with cornice, frieze, dentilled taenia and architrave. The gutter is surrounded on three sides by a gutter with acroteria topped with an anthemion. Two engaged pilasters with Tuscan capitals support the roof at the rear.</p><br>
<p>The south wing is only one story in height, but has similar treatments to the main block, with less decoration. A full porch spans the west facade, where a secondary entrance is located in the middle of its three bays. It is also floored in gray limestone with similar steps, but is supported by Doric columns, backed at the wall by similarly treated pilasters, with a plain frieze. A three-sided bay projects from the south wall.</p><br>
<p>On the east, the one-and-a-half-story frame wing&#39;s foundation has been partially replaced by stone-faced concrete block and stuccoed over. The stairs to its entrances on the south and east are also concrete. A small gabled canopy is over the east door. Its windows are smaller than those on the rest of the house. The roofline has a boxed cornice with raking fasciae.</p><br>
<h3>Interior</h3><br>
<p>The main entrance, framed by square pilasters, sidelights and a transom with a pattern of repeating semicircles set in a rectangular border, holds a stained and varnished door with recessed panels decorated in a leaf-and-dart pattern. It opens into an entrance hall with a switchback stair, its open stringers decorated with a scroll relief. The newel at the base consists of a square bottom with a round turned post carved in an acanthus leaf relief pattern. It is capped in a carved acanthus scroll. Narrow turned balusters support the handrail, and four Doric columns support the landing and upper run.</p><br>
<p>The windows in the entrance hall have wide casings with backband trim, shouldered architraves and thick cap moldings. A large plaster ceiling medallion, with a floral rosette including two strings of striated petals inside a ring of alternating acanthus and small rosettes, holds an acorn-globe light fixture on a chain. At the rear of the entrance hall is a former bedroom. Its fireplace has a black marble Italianate mantel and cast iron firebox.</p><br>
<p>South of the entrance hall is a large room with 11-foot-9-inch (11.75 ft) ceiling occupying the rest of the main block. It is elaborately decorated as well, starting with a one-foot (30 cm) three-member molded baseboard running around the rooms entire perimeter. The door and window surrounds are more detailed than the ones in the entrance hall. Their architraves have a regularly spaced row of rosettes, and their cap moldings have a scroll relief surrounded by freestanding anthemia. The architraves rosette motif is repeated on the black marble mantel, with a cast iron surround inside it done in</p><br>
<p>reed-and-tie molding. Three more acorn-globe light fixtures hang from the ceiling by chains. The second floor has three large rooms with sloped plaster ceilings, following that of the roof above.</p><br>
<p>A paneled double door connects to another large room in the south wing. It has a lower ceiling and more restrained decoration — the window and surrounds are a flat casing with molded backband A Colonial Revival fireplace with exposed brick mantel is in the center wall of the projecting bay.</p><br>
<p>The east wing contains the kitchen and a woodshed. It has seven-foot (7 ft) plaster ceilings with walls finished in rough plaster. On the east wall is an early 19th-century cooking fireplace and baking oven with wooden Federal style mantel. The oven is behind two wooden doors. The doors have narrow casings with beaded Federal style backbands. There is a small pantry in the northeast corner. The woodshed, on the east, has an earthen floor below the kitchen&#39;s floor level.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>John Lee, a resident of nearby Barre who came north for the business opportunities presented by the canal, built what is today the south and rear wings around 1840. The kitchen fireplace and oven, woodshed, and the door and window casings reflecting the transition between the Federal and Greek Revival styles are the most prominent remnants of this house. In 1848 he and his wife sold the house, then on a 20 acre lot, to Orson Tousley.</p><br>
<p>A son of one of the county&#39;s earliest settlers, Tousley had run a tavern in Clarendon until 1837, when he began speculating in real estate and pursuing various other business ventures, including the contract for widening the canal through the county and some of the early railroad construction in the area. He served in several public offices in Clarendon, including town supervisor around the time he bought the house.</p><br>
<p>In the next decade he enlarged and renovated the house, adding the new main block. The previous main block, now the south wing, was converted to a hipped roof to harmonize with the larger portion. Like most of those made affluent by the canal and its business in the area, he embraced the newly popular Greek Revival style. In particular Tousley&#39;s alterations and new construction, with its intricate and elaborate decoration both inside and out, show the influence of Minard Lafever and his pattern books of the time.</p><br>
<p>Tousley died in 1863, leaving the house to his young daughter Florence. Three years later she married George Church, son of Sanford E. Church, former lieutenant governor and chief of New Yorks highest court, the Court of Appeals. George himself would serve as deputy superintendent of insurance and deputy state treasurer. The Churches only major change to the house was the addition of the projecting bay on the south wings south wall, around 1870.</p><br>
<p>Florence Church lived into her eighties, becoming one of the 25 founding members of the local Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) chapter when it was established in 1925, serving as its regent. She died shortly thereafter, and bequeathed the house to her son Sanford T. Church, who had gone into the law and served as a judge locally for many years. He and his wife, also named Florence, sold the house to Emma Reed Webster in 1929 for $2,000 ($ in contemporary dollars) more than the small mortgage remaining on it. They stipulated that the extra money would be donated to the Orleans DAR, and the county historical society, to start an endowment in the Church family name.</p><br>
<p>Two months later Webster, who was not a member of the chapter and later moved to Utica, donated the house to the DAR. To adapt it for use as an organizational building, she paid for the installation of central heating and carpeting to conceal the concrete floors she had poured, the removal of an exterior woodshed and other outbuildings once shown on the map, the addition of the fireplace and chimney in the south wing bay, and the combination of the five rooms in the main block and south wing into two large meeting spaces. She also gave the chapter furniture including a hundred chairs, and an electric range in the kitchen. When she died she also left the chapter an endowment. There have been no other alterations to the house since, and it has remained the local DAR chapter&#39;s building.</p><br>
<p>The Servoss House is a located on Fruit Avenue  in the town of Ridgeway, New York, United States, near Medina. It is a Greek Revival style home built between 1830 and 1833 alongside the Erie Canal.</p><br>
<p>It has an unusual structural system consisting of stacked horizontal wooden planks, similar to that used by the contemporaneous Benjamin Franklin Gates House in Barre. It remains mostly intact today. In 2008 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.</p><br>
<h2>Buildings and grounds</h2><br>
<p>The house is located on a 10-acre (4 ha) lot on the east side of Fruit where it bends westward at the canal and becomes Dublin Road. It is roughly one mile (1.6 km) west of Medina, midway between the village and the Niagara County line. To the south of the house, on an embankment along the north bank of the canal, is the Canal Trailway, a public path for pedestrians and bicyclists on the canal&#39;s former towpath. Across the canal is Telegraph Road (NY 31E), the main route between Medina and Middleport to the west. Other houses are across Fruit Avenue, slightly to the north.</p><br>
<p>Around the house are mature maple and locust trees. There are large lawns in front and back; a driveway leads back to Fruit from the north (rear) of the house. In the woods to the northeast is an old smokehouse, considered a contributing resource to the house&#39;s historic character. The remainder of the property is wooded, with pines joining the hardwoods. Most of the surrounding area is wooded, giving way to worked fields to the north and east.</p><br>
<p>The house itself has a two-story, three-bay main block with wings on either side. All sections are sided in clapboard and have asphalt roofs. The main block and two-story east wing have hipped roofs; the one-and-a-half-story west wing is gabled. A small gabled garage wing projects north from the east wing.</p><br>
<p>Its structural system is referred to variously as horizontal-plank frame, stacked plank or plank-to-plank. The clapboard is affixed to layers of planks stacked solid. Usually 2 by planks were used, staggered to form a plaster key (fastening). They are spiked or pegged together at the corners, windows, doors and other spaces.</p><br>
<p>At the corners of the south (front) facade, wooden Doric pilasters, their capitals starting at the architrave line created by the simple wooden lintels on the second-story windows, frame the building. Above the windows is a wide frieze where paired brackets support overhanging eaves.</p><br>
<p>Both wings have hipped-roof full-length porches. They are supported by hand-turned Doric columns with molded capitals. The east wing roofline is also bracketed.</p><br>
<p>The main entrance is in the easternmost of the three bays. It is surrounded by a paneled enframement with an eared entablature that goes to the sill of the window above. Inside two pilasters frame the door and its long vertical sidelights. Above their decorated crosspiece is a transom.</p><br>
<p>The door opens into the main blocks central hallway. To its south is the main stair with a simple handrail and balustrade. Two large parlors are to the west. The west wings first floor is given over to the living room; the east is the kitchen wing. On the second story are four bedrooms and a bathroom. The west wing&#39;s bedroom has a vaulted ceiling.</p><br>
<p>Wide plank pine floors are used all over the house. All original finishes are of carved cucumber tree wood. The door and window surrounds are simple molded shouldered architraves and the baseboards are wide molded planks.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Christopher Servoss came west with his family from Montgomery County in the early 1820s to capitalize on the opportunities created by the canal. He bought 235 acre from the Holland Land Company, including the current parcel, and built a log cabin. In 1830, with the help of carpenters and masons who had worked on the canal, he began building the house for him, his family and his second wife. It was finished by 1833.</p><br>
<p>Why they used the unusual horizontal-plank system, generally found elsewhere in the Northeast and in neighboring areas of Canada, is not known. It was believed to retain heat better and protect against wind gusts in the harsh winters the region was known for. Since they required less skill and more material to build than regular timber frame houses, they may have been well-suited for newly settled areas where skilled carpenters and joiners were not available but where wood and the sawmills to process it were abundant. Combinations of both these theories may have motivated the Servosses. The direct access to lumber in large quantities via the canal may have made it even more economical.</p><br>
<p>For over a hundred years the house remained with Servoss&#39;s descendants. Very few alterations were made, although the lot was gradually subdivided and sold off. In 1940, it was sold out of the family. After several other owners, it passed in 1952 to its present owners, who have been active in restoring and preserving it.</p><br>
<p>The Old Federal Building in Anchorage, Alaska is a structure serving primarily as a courthouse of the United States District Court for the District of Alaska. Completed in stages from 1939 to 1941, the building was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.</p><br>
<h2>Building history</h2><br>
<p>Constructed almost twenty years before Alaska became the forty-ninth state, the Federal Building in Anchorage symbolized the USA government&#39;s commitment to the economic growth and development of the territory. Providing residents with a post office, courthouse, and other federal services, it was the first large federal building constructed in Anchorage.</p><br>
<p>This block of Anchorage was designated on the original 1915 plat for the Federal Reserve Bank. The first building erected on the site was a post office, followed by a USA Marshals office and territorial jail, which were demolished to make way for the Federal Building. Gilbert Stanley Underwood (1890–1961) designed the original 1939–1940 building and the 1940–1941 west wing addition under the guidance of the Office of the Supervising Architect of the Treasury. Underwood was a Los Angeles-based architect best known for designing National Park lodges. He also designed train stations for the Union Pacific Railroad before he began work for the federal government in 1932. While employed by the supervising architect&#39;s office, he designed several federal buildings, including the original portion of the Harry S Truman Building in Washington, D.C. He served as supervising architect from 1943–1949.</p><br>
<p>The building housed every federal agency with an office in Anchorage, and tenants included the Civilian Conservation Corps, the United States Department of the Interior, the Signal Corps, and the Alaska Railroad. In order to accommodate all of them, the building expanded several times. The first wing extension, completed in 1940–1941, closely followed the original construction and housed the post office. The 1958 courtyard in-fill, a contemporary metal-clad design by Edwin Butler Crittenden, housed the Third District Court. The 1991 addition is home to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).</p><br>
<p>The building served as an early symbol of the federal government to Alaskans, giving them confidence in their acceptance as part of the United States. During celebrations of statehood in 1958, a huge American flag with forty-nine stars literally covered the facade of the building. One star was covered with a larger star to highlight Alaska becoming a state.</p><br>
<h2>Architecture</h2><br>
<p>The building is a 1930s Modern, cast-in-place reinforced concrete building with a flat roof and parapet. The original plans called for the eventual construction of a square building with a large internal courtyard, beginning with the original portion that formed the south side or base of the square. Before completion of the building in 1940, it became clear that it would not be large enough to accommodate all of the federal agencies in Anchorage, so construction began immediately on the first addition. Thus by 1941, both the base and the original portion of the western wing were complete. The western wing was enlarged and the shorter eastern wing was built later. Subsequent additions filled in portions of the courtyard rather than completing the square. Although they have undergone several alterations, the original facade and both wings of the building retain a significant degree of architectural integrity.</p><br>
<p>The majority of the building has two stories and a basement. The east and west ends of the south elevation, above the main entry doors, are topped by three-story penthouses. In addition to providing access to the offices within the building, the southeast entrance originally led to the courtroom in the east wing and the southwest entrance to the post office in the west wing. Both wings have two stories and the elevations retain much of their original appearance. The building has little exterior ornamentation. The tall, narrow windows are the most distinctive element of the exterior. Their slightly recessed window frames emphasize the verticality of the windows and the building as a whole, as do the stepped recesses on either side of the main entry doors. The current windows are not original, but the visual effect is consistent with the original appearance.</p><br>
<p>The interior of the building features many original noteworthy elements, yet displays the same lack of embellishment evident on the exterior. Ceramic tiled wainscoting and quarry tiled floors line the stairwells, entry vestibules, corridors and the original postal lobbies. The stairwells also retain original steel newel posts, wrought iron balusters, and stained wood handrails. The ceramic drinking fountains evident in the corridors throughout the building add to its historic integrity. The entry vestibule ceilings feature stepped cove perimeters. Remaining in place are the light fixtures evident in the original designs for the first floor lobbies and the coffered ceilings original to the first floor corridors. The corridor doors are not original. However, they replicate the original two-panel wood doors with upper panels of glass.</p><br>
<p>The most significant interior space is the original federal district courtroom on the first floor. This room retains its original stained walnut wainscot and benches, and features an oil-on-canvas mural titled Alaskan Landscape behind the judge&#39;s bench. The mural was the work of Arthur Kerrick, who secured a Works Progress Administration commission in 1942. The oil-on-canvas painting was not, however, installed until the 1950s. Five murals were planned for the courtroom, but only the Kerrick mural was completed and installed. Art conservator Peter Malarkey restored the mural in 1993.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>1939–1940: Construction of original building</p><br>
<p>1940–1941: First addition constructed</p><br>
<p>1958: Court facilities addition</p><br>
<p>1978: Listed in National Register of Historic Places</p><br>
<h2>Building facts</h2><br>
<p>Location: 605 West Fourth Avenue</p><br>
<p>Architect: Gilbert Stanley Underwood</p><br>
<p>Construction Dates: 1939–1941</p><br>
<p>Architectural Style: 1930s Modern</p><br>
<p>Landmark Status: Listed in the National Register of Historic Places</p><br>
<p>Primary Material: Concrete</p><br>
<p>Prominent Features: Tall vertical windows; Rectilinear poured-in-place concrete exterior; Distinguished woodwork; New Deal mural in courtroom</p><br>
<p>The James A. Walsh United States Courthouse, also or formerly named USA Post Office and Courthouse, is a historic post office and courthouse building located at Tucson at Pima County, Arizona. It was a courthouse of the United States District Court for the District of Arizona.</p><br>
<h2>Building history</h2><br>
<p>The building was constructed during 1929-1930 as a USA Post Office and Courthouse. It was designed in 1928-1929 by the Office of the Supervising Architect under James A. Wetmore. Planning for the building began in 1910, when the USA House of Representatives approved a bill authorizing the purchase of a site for a new post office in Tucson. That was the same year that the statehood bill, discussed since Congress deemed Arizona worthy of statehood in 1888, finally passed the House of Representatives. Still, Arizona did not become a state until 1912. It would be another 20 years before the building was constructed.</p><br>
<p>When the Treasury Department failed to act, the city purchased the site recommended by the federal site agent who visited Tucson in 1911, and the city donated the property to the federal government. Delays continued because by this time Congress had instituted a moratorium on construction due to negative publicity surrounding the awarding of building contracts. In the interim, the federal government leased out the land and a gas station and other businesses occupied the parcel. Congress lifted the construction moratorium in 1926. The appropriation for design and construction of the building occurred in 1928.</p><br>
<p>Scheduled for completion in December 1930, the building was completed ahead of schedule, and opened for business on September 19, 1930. The post office operated in the building until 1974. The building was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1983 as "USA Post Office and Courthouse". In 1985, the United States Congress passed a bill renaming the building in honor of James Augustine Walsh, who served as a federal district judge from 1952 to 1981. For the first eighteen years of his tenure Walsh was the only judge in the USA District Court in Tucson.</p><br>
<p>The USA District Court moved out of the Walsh Courthouse in 2000 into the newly completed Evo A. DeConcini Courthouse in Tucson. In 2002, a remodeling project was begun in order to accommodate the USA Bankruptcy Court, which would be the new long-term tenant of the building. After the first phase of the project was completed, the Bankruptcy Court moved in and remained in the building during the second phase of construction, completed in 2008.</p><br>
<h2>Architecture</h2><br>
<p>The building is a well-executed, well-preserved example of the Neoclassical architectural style. The building was designed in 1928-1929 by the Office of the Supervising Architect of the Treasury, then under the direction of Acting Supervising Architect James A. Wetmore. The Walsh building is a neoclassical arrangement modified by a Mission-style roof. The neoclassical style is characterized by symmetry of plan, frontal arrangement, monumental proportions, and flat, smooth or polished stone surfaces. The Treasury Department favored neoclassicism as the appropriate architectural style for most of the federal buildings constructed during this time period. However, the Mission-style variations on the building are used to moderate the rigid neoclassical lines while acknowledging the local building tradition.</p><br>
<p>The decoration of the building is understated, but the primary (south) facade of the building is the most elaborate in ornament and detail. It is lavishly finished with terracotta sheathing, which is contrasted by small amounts of brickwork in the two end bays. Two tiers of superimposed rows of pilasters dominate this facade. The entablature of the lower tier bears the words "United States Court House." Each level features six engaged columns with stylized Composite capitals. There are stylized eagles above each of the fourth floor windows, and other terracotta ornaments are visible on this facade. There are two large entry doors for the building, one at either end of this bay and each featuring a classical surround with a flat pediment. At either end of the central bay are brick-faced bays framed by terracotta quoins (corner elements). The other elevations are relatively unembellished, although the east front gained some significance when the main entry door was moved to this side in the recent remodeling project. The exterior exhibits a high degree of its original character, with only minimal alterations evident.</p><br>
<p>A post office originally occupied the first floor and remained there until 1974. When the post office moved out, the first floor post office workroom was remodeled for use as a courtroom, and the original main post office lobby was converted into a jury assembly room. The original skylight in the postal workroom was covered, and the lobby was broken up into smaller spaces. The recent renovation project restored the main lobby to its original open configuration and preserved many of its original elements and finishes, including the terracotta tiled, basketweave patterned floor, the plaster walls, the marble wainscots and floor borders, and the ceilings with molded plaster crowns. The former postal workroom now serves as an intake area for the Courts. The original postal workroom skylight was enclosed, but two new "belvedere" skylights, which allow natural light into the space but significantly reduce heat gain, were installed.</p><br>
<p>The second, third, and fourth stories consist of corridors around the light well, each of which contains a mixture of offices and courtroom spaces. The most significant interior space is the main courtroom, located on the southern side of the third and fourth floors. The space retains many of its original elements, including the wood-beamed ceiling with stenciled patterns, original wainscoting, plaster walls, and wooden window and door frames and surrounds. The historic courtroom was a primary focus of the second phase of the recent renovation project. Inappropriate non-historic light fixtures were replaced with more compatible fixtures, the stenciled ceiling received conservation treatment, and the judges bench and jury box were reconfigured to meet the needs of the Bankruptcy Court. This building is the best-preserved example of Tucsons Depression-era architecture.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>1929-1930: Building constructed</p><br>
<p>1970s: Post Office moves out of building and first floor altered for other uses</p><br>
<p>1983: Listed in National Register of Historic Places</p><br>
<p>1985: Building renamed in honor of James A. Walsh</p><br>
<p>2000: USA District Court vacates building</p><br>
<p>2002: Major renovation project begun to accommodate USA Bankruptcy Court</p><br>
<p>2003: USA Bankruptcy Court moves into building</p><br>
<p>2008: Renovation project completed</p><br>
<h2>Building facts</h2><br>
<p>Location: 38 South Scott Avenue</p><br>
<p>Architect: James A. Wetmore</p><br>
<p>Construction Dates: 1929-1930</p><br>
<p>Architectural Style: Neoclassical</p><br>
<p>Landmark Status: Listed in National Register of Historic Places</p><br>
<p>Primary Materials: Granite, brick, and terracotta</p><br>
<p>Prominent Features: Terracotta tiles resembling limestone; Classical facade with terra-cotta ornamentation; Courtroom with wood-beamed ceiling and decorative accents</p><br>
<p>The house at 356 Albany Avenue  in Kingston, New York, United States is a frame house built near the end of the 19th century. It is in the Queen Anne architectural style.</p><br>
<p>Its front facade has some classically inspired ornament, dating it to the "Free Classical" phase of the Queen Anne style, a precursor to the Colonial Revival style that became popular in the early 20th century. In 2002 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.</p><br>
<h2>Property</h2><br>
<p>The house is on a 50 by lot on the east side of the street, at the southeast corner of the Wiltwyck Avenue intersection. The neighborhood is residential.</p><br>
<p>It is a two-and-a-half-story building on a stone foundation, sided in clapboard on the first story and shingles on the second. The two stories are divided by a belt course, above which the walls flare. Above the roofline, marked by a molded cornice and denticulated cornice, is a steeply pitched hipped roof pierced by a gabled dormer window on the west (front) elevation.</p><br>
<p>The front facade has a wooden porch on its north section and a projecting bay on its southern third. Broad Doric columns support the porch&#39;s shed roof and plain entablature. An offset pedimented gable surmounts the main steps, with laurel and garland in the tympanum, echoed between the two windows above and the dormer gable. Bay windows of three and four units respectively mark the two stories on the south. Above them a projecting pedimented gable has a small Palladian window at its center.</p><br>
<p>The south profile is less decorated, with two groups of windows and a lancet on the first floor comprising its fenestration. On the east (rear) is a small single-story extension covered by a hipped roof. The north side, facing Wiltwyck Avenue, has an unusual six-panel stair light. Above it is more classical decoration, a detailed cornice with a swag-ornamented frieze. It is accompanied by a three-paneled bay window similar to the one on the south of the front elevation and a centrally located gabled dormer in the roof, as well.</p><br>
<p>At the main entrance, paneled entrance doors in a finely crafted floral motif open into a vestibule/stair hall. The stair is the one accompanying the light on the north side, and it has finely crafted balusters and paneling. The central hall is lit by the bay window to the north and a Queen Anne window on the rear. From there an archway leads to the south parlor, with parquet flooring and a period fireplace and mantel. The second floor also retains its original plan and finish, including most of the woodwork.</p><br>
<p>Behind the house is a carriage house built at the same time, now used as a garage. It is considered a contributing resource to the property&#39;s historic character and thus is included in the National Register listing.</p><br>
<h2>History and aesthetics</h2><br>
<p>Like nearby 313 Albany Avenue, built the previous year, 356 Albany reflects the Free Classical phase of the Queen Anne style. One of the most common modes for upscale late Victorian homes, the style was an attempt to evoke the first years of the 18th century in England, when medieval buildings were updated with decorative touches. In the late 19th century, the style was typified by a complex interplay of forms and contrasts in colors and surface textures, all of which are present in 356 Albany.</p><br>
<p>In the last years of the century, architects expanded the styles ornamental vocabulary to include classical elements, such as the houses porch columns and the laurel-and-garland motif on the east facade. The use of Georgian elements, most notably the Palladian window seen both here and at 313 Albany, was another sign of the maturing style. In the USA, these eventually led to the wider embrace of mid-18th century forms and the Colonial Revival. The original owner of the house is not known, but it was clearly someone of a socioeconomic stature that could afford to build in the most contemporary style of the day, with elaborate interior detailing (also found at 313 Albany). It has remained a private residence since its construction.</p><br>
<p>The Richard H. Chambers USA Court of Appeals is a historic building originally constructed as a Spanish Colonial Revival style resort known as the Vista del Arroyo Hotel and Bungalows located at Pasadena in Los Angeles County, California. During World War II, it served as the McCornack General Hospital, and was thereafter in use as a general-purpose federal government building for several decades. It now serves as a courthouse of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.</p><br>
<h2>Building history</h2><br>
<p>Set on the crest of a steep hill overlooking the Arroyo Seco River, the Richard H. Chambers USA Court of Appeals Building towers over its setting and dominates the view from across the Arroyo. Originally built as a hotel during the late stages of Pasadena&#39;s great resort hotel age, the main building was constructed in two sections—the two-story north wing, in 1920, and the six-story bell tower with flanking wings, in 1930.</p><br>
<p>The site&#39;s resort history dates to 1882, when Emma C. Bangs opened the original La Vista del Arroyo Hotel, a two-story, wood-frame building, and series of small cottages. In 1919, hotel tycoon Daniel M. Linnard, associated with such elegant Pasadena hotels as the Huntington and Green, purchased La Vista del Arroyo with the vision of developing the property into an opulent resort. Linnard commissioned the architectural firm of Marston & Van Pelt to design a large, two-story Spanish Colonial Revival hotel to replace the original structure. Once the popularity of the Vista had been established, select guests also built bungalows on the property.</p><br>
<p>In 1926, Linnard sold the resort to former business partner H.O. Comstock. Comstock hired architect George H. Wiemeyer to redesign the hotel and add a grand six-story addition that consisted of a central bell tower and flanking wings set at an angle. The new Vista opened in 1931 with iridescent color, entertainment, and social gaiety. In 1936, Linnard repurchased the property and hired landscape architect Verner S. Anderson to improve the hotel&#39;s grounds by designing formal gardens and adding fountains, tennis courts, and a swimming pool.</p><br>
<p>In 1943 the USA War Department acquired the hotel complex and converted it into the McCornack General Hospital and offices for the USA Army. The hospital was named after Brigadier General Condon C. McCornack, Command Surgeon of the Western Defense Command. In 1949, the hospital was closed and the old hotel, under the care of the USA General Services Administration (GSA), housed a variety of Federal agencies from 1951 to 1974.</p><br>
<p>In 1981 the Vista del Arroyo was placed in the National Register of Historic Places and GSA began design work to restore the building as the southern seat of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. In 1995, the building was renamed to honor Judge Richard Harvey Chambers, whose concept it was to bring a Federal courthouse to Pasadena.</p><br>
<h2>Architecture</h2><br>
<p>The courthouse is the largest of several buildings adjacent to a residential district at the western edge of Pasadena. The old hotel was constructed primarily in two sections: a two-story steel and wood frame section built in 1920–21, and a six-story reinforced concrete portion built in 1930–1931. The buildings were joined together at the original main entrance, their first floors aligning on the interior to form a continuous first level. The two sections form a U-shaped plan, oriented to face the Colorado Street Bridge. Only the northernmost portion of the 1920 building remains—its southern half and central campanile (bell tower) were removed for the 1930s addition.</p><br>
<p>Both the 1920 and the 1930 sections were designed in the Spanish Colonial Revival style with a skillful interplay of stucco walls, arched openings, and terracotta tile roof. The exterior ornamental detailing is very simple, with bracketed balconies, an arcaded ground level, and Spanish Colonial Revival features such as circular windows and twisted balusters. The most prominent component of the building, the 1930 tower, is richly embellished and capped with a dome covered with patterned dual-toned tiles.</p><br>
<p>Between 1920 and 1937, four architects played significant roles in designing the Vista del Arroyo. Sylvanus Marston and Garrett Van Pelt were responsible for the plans for the 1920 hotel. In 1921, architect Myron Hunt transformed the Vista Hotel into one of the premier resorts in Pasadena, designing several of the hotel&#39;s original bungalows. Pasadena architect George H. Wiemeyer designed the elegant six-story addition in 1930.</p><br>
<p>The first floor of the interior was richly ornamented. At the hotel entrance, visitors strolled through a vine-covered pergola to a lobby embellished with decorative pilasters, freestanding columns, and plaster moldings. From the elaborate Morning Room and Sunset Room, guests viewed the gardens and outdoor activities as the day progressed.</p><br>
<p>A number of cottages, including the elaborate Maxwell House, remain in privately owned portions of the original property. On the 7.2 acre still owned by the Government, GSA continues to maintain the original paths, patios, and gardens.</p><br>
<p>During the 1980s, GSA restored the building exterior, grounds, and ornamental interior spaces to their original appearance under the design direction of J. Rudy Freeman of Neptune & Thomas, earning awards from the American Institute of Architects and National Endowment for the Arts. Suspended ceilings were removed and original plaster decorations recreated in the Spanish Room (now a courtroom), Dining Room (now a library), Lounge (now offices), Morning Room (now a conference room), and foyers.</p><br>
<p>The Spanish Room is particularly lavish; its rich detail includes a highly decorative ceiling with large cast-iron grilles and walls with wrought-iron grilles. The original Dining Room features plaster pilasters and columns, wrought-iron light fixtures, large arched window openings, and a beamed ceiling. The elevator lobby and west foyer also retain significant original elements, such as the decorative elevator doors and original glazed-tile risers of the main stair. A reconstructed rose-covered pergola, restored fountain, and colorful plantings are at the entrance to the USA Court of Appeals.</p><br>
<h2>Significant events</h2><br>
<p>1882: Emma C. Bangs opens a resort hotel called La Vista del Arroyo.</p><br>
<p>1919: Hotel tycoon Daniel M. Linard buys the hotel and hires architects Marston & Van Pelt to replace the wood-frame building with a larger Spanish Colonial Revival structure.</p><br>
<p>1930: Architect George H. Wiemeyer redesigns the hotel with a six-story addition.</p><br>
<p>1936-37: Landscape architect Verner S. Anderson improves the resort by adding formal gardens, fountains, tennis courts, and a large swimming pool.</p><br>
<p>1943-1949: The hotel serves as the War Department&#39;s McCornack General Hospital.</p><br>
<p>1951-1974: Various Federal agencies occupy the building. The hotel serves as the venue for Project Vista.</p><br>
<p>1981: Neptune & Thomas begins designing restoration of old Vista to house USA Court of Appeals. The building is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.</p><br>
<p>1985: The USA General Services Administration reopens the former hotel as a Federal courthouse.</p><br>
<h2>Building facts</h2><br>
<p>Architects: Sylvanus Marston & Garrett Van Pelt; George H. Wiemeyer; Myron Hunt</p><br>
<p>Construction Dates: North wing, 1920; tower and angled wings, 1930; bungalows, 1921–37; Maxwell House, 1929</p><br>
<p>Landmark Status: Listed in the National Register of Historic Places</p><br>
<p>Location: 125 South Grand Street</p><br>
<p>Architectural Style: Spanish Colonial Revival style</p><br>
<p>Primary Materials: Reinforced concrete walls dressed with beige stucco and red terra-cotta tile roof</p><br>
<p>Prominent Feature: Six-story bell tower</p><br>
<p>The James R. Browning USA Court of Appeals Building is a historic post office and courthouse building located at San Francisco, California. It is a courthouse for the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Completed in 1905 as the USA Courthouse and Post Office, it was intended to represent the affluence and increasing importance of the United States as it became a world power. The building survived both the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>By the 1870s it became apparent that San Francisco was in dire need of a federal building to house the federal courts and the post office that were located in various downtown buildings. In 1887 a commission delegated to select a site reported that the $350,000 allocated by the USA Congress was insufficient and the sum was raised to $1,250,000. The property chosen at Seventh and Mission Streets was more than a mile from the central business district and surrounded by a working-class neighborhood of Irish and German immigrants. Although many disapproved, the lot was purchased in 1891. In 1893 $2,500,000 was appropriated for construction.</p><br>
<p>USA Treasury architects worked on designs for the building, with Supervising Architect James Knox Taylor (1857-1929) playing a lead role. Taylor selected a design influenced by Italian Renaissance architecture with magnificent Beaux Arts grandeur. To achieve the high level of craftsmanship specified for the interior, skilled artisans were brought from Italy, who reportedly later worked on San Simeon. Groundbreaking took place in 1897 and the building opened in 1905 to acclaim as "a post office that&#39;s a palace".</p><br>
<p>On April 18, 1906, an earthquake devastated San Francisco. The courthouse and post office building survived the quake with little damage and thanks to the efforts of postal workers, only one room, now Courtroom 3, the Redwood Room, was damaged by the ensuing fire. It and the 1874 USA Mint designed by Alfred B. Mullett were the only buildings south of Market Street to survive the earthquake and resulting fires. While repairs were made, the Post Office set up collection points around the city, with the building serving as a symbol of hope in the weeks following the earthquake. Restoration was completed in 1910.</p><br>
<p>The building was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1971. It was declared a National Historic Landmark on October 16, 2012, for its architecture.</p><br>
<h2>Architecture</h2><br>
<p>The building reflects the Beaux Arts classicism adopted by the USA Treasury Department for early twentieth-century federal buildings. The stylized building is a steel-framed structure clad in white Sierra granite. The magnificent building, with its opulent ornamentation and surface treatments, was exceptionally lavish even at the time of its construction.</p><br>
<p>The imposing building, echoing the Italian palazzos designed by Bramante and Raphael during the Renaissance, is ornamented with enclosed pediments, balustrades, and rows of arched windows. The bronze entry lanterns are replicas of the torch-holders designed in 1489 by Niccolo Grosso for the home of Filippo Strozzi, the richest banker in Florence. The building features six lunette mosaics on allegorical themes, designed by artist Earl Stetson Crawford: a group of three representing "Columbia&#39;s progress in the arts and sciences during the present century" and another group of three representing "Law and her attributes". Crawford won the commission through an open competition.</p><br>
<p>Originally, the building was a three-story structure with a fourth story, or attic level, set back from the facade and partially hidden behind the cornice and balustrade. This main block of the building was U-shaped with an interior courtyard. The courtyard was ornamented with geometric patterns of red, white, and blue glazed brick walls and one hundred pink-tongued lion heads along the cornice. In order to provide desperately needed office space to meet the needs of the expanding federal bureaucracy, noted San Francisco architect George Kelham (1871-1936) was commissioned in 1933 to design a four-story addition for the east side of the building, enclosing the interior courtyard. The addition repeats the design of the original facades, although the third and fourth stories are veneered in terra cotta.</p><br>
<p>Although the building&#39;s exterior is impressive in the quality of detail, ornamentation, and material, the elegant interiors are even more exquisite. The post office originally occupied the ground floor with a lobby running the width of the Seventh Street (main) facade. The second floor had offices for court staff and federal agencies, while the third floor contained the ornate courtrooms, judicial chambers, and conference rooms.</p><br>
<p>Rare and exquisite materials on each of the floors of the building include a range of imported marble, such as Carrara and Yellow Siena from Italy, Pacific Coast Salmon Pink, and Red Numidian from North Africa. The grand first-floor hall, accessible through massive bronze doors, is paneled in black-veined white Italian marble trimmed in green marble from Maryland and Vermont. Marble mosaics adorn the groin-vaulted ceiling. The floor is composed of ceramic-tile mosaic. Stained-glass domes ringed with marble-mosaic tile eagles enhance the rotundas at each end of the hall.</p><br>
<p>The Great Hall, located on the third floor, is adorned with white marble walls, Doric order columns, and a vaulted ceiling beautifully ribbed with gold trimmed plaster ornamentation. This hall leads to Courtroom One, the most elaborate interior space in the building. Originally designed for the USA District Court, Courtroom One features Marble mosaics, columns with carved Composite capitals, carved fruit motifs, cast-plaster cupids and flowers, and stained-glass windows. In contrast to the opulence of the Beaux Arts designed spaces, the two courtrooms on the second floor of the 1933-1934 addition are designed in the sleek Moderne style. Detailing in these spaces include the labyrinth-patterned ceiling, cork walls, and gilded plaster eagles.</p><br>
<p>Additions and renovations took place throughout its history, including an extensive restoration project overseen by Judge Richard H. Chambers during the 1960s. The Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989 caused major damage, initiating a $91,000,000 seismic retrofitting and restoration effort. In addition to the installation of base isolators, the project, led by the architectural firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, included repairs, modernization, and restoration and the addition of 45,000 ft&sup2; of space for a law library and offices in the former Post Office area. The building formally reopened as the USA Court of Appeals Building for the Ninth Circuit on October 17, 1996, the seventh anniversary of the Loma Prieta earthquake.</p><br>
<h2>Significant events</h2><br>
<p>1887: USA Congress authorizes the construction of a courthouse and post office in San Francisco</p><br>
<p>1897–1905: The USA Courthouse and Post Office is constructed under direction of Supervising Architect of the Treasury James Knox Taylor</p><br>
<p>1906: Despite the devastating destruction of San Francisco by an earthquake on April 18, the USA Courthouse and Post Office survives</p><br>
<p>1910: Repairs of earthquake damage to the USA Courthouse and Post Office are completed</p><br>
<p>1933–1934: A four-story wing, designed by San Francisco architect George Kelham, is constructed on the east side of building</p><br>
<p>1959: Judge Richard H. Chambers is appointed court custodian and oversees the restoration of the building</p><br>
<p>1964: The building is renamed the USA Court of Appeals and Post Office</p><br>
<p>1971: The building is listed in the National Register of Historic Places</p><br>
<p>1989–1996: Extensive restoration, renovation, and seismic retrofitting of the building are undertaken as a result of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake</p><br>
<p>1996: Building reopens as the USA Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit</p><br>
<p>2005: Building renamed during centennial celebrations in honor of Judge James R. Browning, circuit judge since 1961</p><br>
<p>2012: Building is declared a National Historic Landmark</p><br>
<h2>Building facts</h2><br>
<p>Architects: James Knox Taylor, Supervising Architect of the Treasury</p><br>
<p>East addition: George Kelham</p><br>
<p>Courtyard addition: Skidmore, Owings, & Merrill</p><br>
<p>Construction dates: 1897–1905; 1933–1934; 1993–96</p><br>
<p>Landmark status: Listed in the National Register of Historic Places</p><br>
<p>Location: 95 Seventh Street</p><br>
<p>Architectural style: Beaux Arts</p><br>
<p>Primary materials: White Sierra granite courtyards and addition clad in white ceramic-faced brick</p><br>
<p>Prominent features: Great hall; Courtrooms with marble and mosaic ornamentation</p><br>
<p>The Jacob Weinberger USA Courthouse is a historic courthouse building in San Diego, California. It is a courthouse for the United States bankruptcy court for the Southern District of California.</p><br>
<h2>Building history</h2><br>
<p>Fueled by plans to build the Panama Canal, the turn of the 20th century brought aspirations of prosperity and status to San Diego. Civic leaders who lobbied for the construction of the canal hoped that the promise of increased commerce would establish San Diego as an international trade center rivaling San Francisco. A new federal building was commissioned to showcase San Diego&#39;s newfound standing and to provide governmental offices in anticipation of a burgeoning population and urban growth. To attract attention to the city, civic leaders began planning the 1915 Panama–California Exposition to celebrate the successful completion of the canal. The USA Courthouse was completed in 1913 and opened in time for the Exposition.</p><br>
<p>Originally called the USA Post Office and Customs House, the building also housed the USA District Court, Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), and the USA Weather Bureau. When economic crisis followed the outbreak of World War I, urban development in San Diego decelerated, halting plans to construct additional civic buildings adjacent to the USA Courthouse. Instead, the Courthouse&#39;s large front lawn was converted to a "victory" vegetable garden to support the war effort.</p><br>
<p>When prosperity was renewed during the 1950s and 1960s, the Courthouse&#39;s caseloads became the heaviest in the nation, requiring a new Federal building complex, which was completed nearby in 1976. Even though the Courthouse was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1975, it was abandoned for the following decade. Attention refocused on the building in 1985, when much of the interior was gutted for conversion to INS offices. That same year, however, champions of historic preservation campaigned to restore the building. In 1988, the USA Courthouse was renamed in honor of Judge Jacob Weinberger. In 1994, an award-winning renovation and restoration project renewed the historic lobby and main courtroom to their original beauty while creating new offices and courtrooms that evoked the elegant style of the 1913 period.</p><br>
<h2>Architecture</h2><br>
<p>The Jacob Weinberger USA Courthouse masterfully melds two distinct architectural styles – Classical Revival and Spanish Colonial Revival – in a public building that speaks of San Diegos Hispanic heritage and its American ambitions. James Knox Taylor, Supervising Architect of the USA Treasury Department, described his design for the building as, "an adoption of the Spanish Renaissance, a style suitable to the traditions of the country – the history of the state, the climate and the desires of the people – it would follow the Mission style." Taylors design resulted in an unprecedented amalgamation that quickly achieved regional prominence.</p><br>
<p>Occupying the northern half of the city block along West F Street, the T-shaped building is constructed of stucco-covered brick masonry walls resting on a limestone base, with steel columns and beams to support reinforced slab floors.</p><br>
<p>The portico, with its grand Ionic order colonnade, stands as San Diegos only surviving Classical Revival facade. The porticos ten concrete columns rise two stories to Ionic capitals sheathed in terracotta, supporting a terra-cotta tiled entablature. Flattened, abstracted classical ornamentation for the frieze draws from traditional Meso-American or Native American designs, featuring stylized arrow and shield motifs. Arched semicircular fanlights surmount first-story windows, and bracketed iron lanterns flank the central entrance. The second-story fenestration is simpler, with rectangular windows and terra-cotta sills. Above the portico, the third-story windows are each framed with low-relief pilasters with stylized motifs and a terra-cotta-tiled stringcourse. The attic windows are capped by an additional tiled cornice and painted wood panels below a bracketed eave to the low-hipped roof clad with terra-cotta tiles. Framing the portico are two square, five-story Spanish towers that are simply treated at the lower stories, with curved corners and colossal low-relief pilasters. A stringcourse above the third story delineates a fourth-story belfry with a tall arched window at each side, flanked by low-relief pilasters and brackets. A terra-cotta cornice and a stucco parapet continue the classical stylization at the top of the tower walls.</p><br>
<p>Through the mahogany entrance doors, the grand public lobby features the 1994 renovation&#39;s re-creation of the original post office lobby, which was adapted into the lobby of the USA Bankruptcy court. In keeping with the original fabric, the renovation architects worked from original shop drawings to restore missing historic elements. The terrazzo floor, including the Verde Antique marble and Lyonaisse Red marble bands and baseboards, and the Kasota Yellow-colored marble used for the wainscoting were artfully restored. Key features include the twin-globe sconces lining the walls, pendant lighting hanging from the coffered ceiling, and mahogany counters with bronze grilles above. Replicas of the original iron-cage elevators located in both towers are enclosed by the original gray marble stairs. Several pieces of 1930s Works Progress Administration art, with San Diego themes, were installed after the 1994 renovation. These include a ceramic sculpture by T.J. Dixon and James Nelson, titled, and two paintings on the third-floor, San Diego Harbor, by an unknown artist and San Diego Mural, by Belle Baranceanu.</p><br>
<p>The ceremonial second-floor courtroom, where Judge Jacob Weinberger presided, features a 20-foot coffered ceiling with acanthus leaf detailing, pilasters, plastered paneling, oak paneling and marble counters for the judge and clerk benches, and the jury boxes. A new law library was added during the 1994 restoration, using materials and motifs that faithfully recall the original building details. Awards for the skillful restoration project included a prize from the California Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. In 1995-96, the building was named the Historical Office Building of the Year by the Building Owners and Managers Association.</p><br>
<h2>Significant events</h2><br>
<p>1906: Congress appropriates $250,000 for the new Federal building in San Diego.</p><br>
<p>1911-13: The building is constructed.</p><br>
<p>1975: The USA Courthouse is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.</p><br>
<p>1976: A new Federal Courthouse and Office complex is completed, leaving the courthouse vacant until the mid-1980s.</p><br>
<p>1985: A campaign to restore the building for use by the USA Bankruptcy Court begins shortly after interiors are destroyed for conversion into Immigration and Naturalization Service offices.</p><br>
<p>1988: The USA Courthouse is renamed in honor of Judge Jacob Weinberger.</p><br>
<p>1994: An award-winning renovation is completed, returning the historic lobby and main courtroom to their original state.</p><br>
<p>1994-96: GSA is honored with numerous awards for the building&#39;s preservation and restoration.</p><br>
<h2>Building facts</h2><br>
<p>Architect: James Knox Taylor</p><br>
<p>Construction dates: 1911-13; 1994 renovation</p><br>
<p>Landmark status: Listed in the National Register of Historic Places</p><br>
<p>Location: 325 West F Street</p><br>
<p>Architectural style: Spanish Colonial Revival-influenced Classical Revival</p><br>
<p>Primary materials: Stucco-covered brick masonry with steel beams, terra-cotta ornamentation</p><br>
<p>Prominent features: Colonnaded portico, square towers</p><br>
<p>The Spring Street Courthouse, formerly the United States Court House in Downtown Los Angeles, is a Moderne style building that originally served as both a post office and a courthouse. The building was designed by Gilbert Stanley Underwood and Louis A. Simon, and construction was completed in 1940. It formerly housed federal courts but is now used by Los Angeles Superior Court.</p><br>
<p>The United States Court House initially housed court facilities for the United States District Court for the Southern District of California, until the District was redrawn in 1966. It thereafter functioned as a court house with judges from the United States District Court for the Central District of California. In 2016 the federal courts moved to the new First Street Courthouse. There is another federal court house in the Roybal Building in Downtown Los Angeles. In February 2006, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as USA Court House and Post Office. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2012, as the site of Gonzalo Mendez et al v. Westminster School District of Orange County, et al, a major legal case in advancing the civil rights of Mexican-Americans, and a precursor to the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case.</p><br>
<h2>Early history</h2><br>
<p>Before it was Downey Block, the northwest corner of Temple and Main that was eventually used for the 1910 and 1937 courthouse buildings was a slave market during the mid-19th century, after California had been incorporated into the Union. In 1850, the California State Legislature signed into law the Act for the Government and Protection of Indians, which allowed for any indigenous Californian to be declared as a "vagrant" by white Americans and taken before a justice of the peace; those who did were subsequently sold at public auction into de facto slavery. In Los Angeles, the public auction took place at a site now occupied by the courthouse. The enslavement of indigenous Californians by white Americans was a crucial part of the California genocide.</p><br>
<h2>Building history</h2><br>
<p>Built between 1937 and 1940 by the Federal Public Works Administration, this was the third federal building constructed in Los Angeles.</p><br>
<p>The first Los Angeles federal building, completed 1892, housed the post office, USA District Court, and various federal agencies, but it soon proved inadequate.</p><br>
<p>The second Los Angeles federal building was used from 1910 to 1937 when it was razed for construction of the Spring Street Courthouse.</p><br>
<p>Gilbert Stanley Underwood was selected to design the building as consulting architect to the Office of the Supervising Architect of the Treasury Department. The actual plans were prepared by the Supervising Architect&#39;s Office. Underwood was acclaimed for his public architecture. His work includes lodges in National Parks, over two dozen post offices, a number of federal courthouses, and the magnificent United States Mint in San Francisco.</p><br>
<p>The original plan specified a fifteen-story building. Even before construction began in May 1937, the Treasury Department realized two more floors would be needed. Congress did not appropriate the additional funding until the initial fifteen-story building was finished in January 1939. The building&#39;s top two stories and penthouse were added between April 1939 and March 1940. At the time of its completion, it was the largest federal building in the western United States. The post office, located on the ground and first floors, moved to another site in 1965. The expanding USA District Court then took over the space.</p><br>
<p>The USA Court House has been the venue for a number of notable court cases, beginning in the 1940s with paternity cases against Clark Gable and Charlie Chaplin, and a breach of contract suit filed by Bette Davis against Warner Brothers. The House Un-American Activities Committee met in the building in 1947 to gather information on Hollywood personalities suspected of Communist involvement. In 1973 the federal government case against Daniel Ellsberg for leaking the "Pentagon Papers" was heard in the courthouse.</p><br>
<p>In 2016, the Central District moved to the New USA Court House on First between Broadway and Hill, leaving the buildings courtrooms empty. In 2018, the Los Angeles County Superior Court began leasing courtrooms in the United States Courthouse from the federal government for some of its civil and complex civil departments. This meant the building would again be used as a courthouse, but would now host a state court instead of a federal court. Other portions of the USA Court House remain in use by certain federal agencies, including the USA Attorneys office, and Probation and Pretrial Services.</p><br>
<h2>Architecture</h2><br>
<p>Located on a landscaped one-acre site bounded by Spring, Main, Temple and Aliso Streets in the Los Angeles Civic Center, the courthouse is a major example of Art Moderne architecture, characterized by its stepped rectangular massing and restrained use of exterior ornamentation. Dark gray granite with pink swirls is used for the steps, retaining walls, and walkway borders. Above a polished granite base, the seventeen-story steel-frame building is clad with a pale pink matte-glazed terra-cotta veneer. It is rectangular in plan, and steps back at the fourth and sixth stories. Above this rises a slab-like tower with a central two-story penthouse. The window openings are organized in vertical strips and set back from the facades. Sandblasted aluminum spandrels separate the paired double-hung windows. The roofs are flat and concealed by tall parapets.</p><br>
<p>The main entrance, which faces Spring Street, is three stories high and recessed behind fluted columns. Each of the five entrance doorways consists of a pair of bronze doors capped by a projecting curved hood bearing a stylized eagle. Above each doorway, an elaborate aluminum grille extends to the full height of the bay. These grilles are decorated with flowers and the seals of five USA Government departments: State, Treasury, War, Justice, and Post Office.</p><br>
<p>The opposite elevation, which faces Main Street, is similar, but has an additional lower story due to the slope of the site, and three entry bays rather than five. This elevation bears the seals of five additional federal departments: Navy, Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, and Labor.</p><br>
<p>The Spring Street and Main Street lobbies have retained most of their original finishes and furnishings. These include polychrome terrazzo floors, ornamental plaster ceilings, and ornate aluminum light fixtures. The Main Street lobby has an oval plan and has walls of Tennessee brown marble with golden Sienna travertine accents and engaged columns of black and gold marble from Montana. The floor contains an inlaid, eight-pointed starburst design, in red, yellow and green terrazzo with Cardiff green marble accents. Two statues stand at opposite ends of the lobby. "Law," depicting a young woman with a tablet, is by Archibald Garner. The other, titled The Young Lincoln, is by local art student James Lee Hansen; it won a Federal Works Agency competition The Spring Street lobby, which originally accommodated the post office, is larger, with a rectangular plan, and has a higher ceiling than the Main Street lobby. It is similar to the Spring Street lobby in its finishes. Four murals, originally installed in this lobby, were removed when the post office moved out. Two by Lucien Labaudt (Life on the Old Spanish and Mexican Ranchos, and Aeroydynamism) and one by Edward Biberman (Los Angeles Prehistoric Spanish Colonial) have been returned.</p><br>
<p>Eight original courtrooms for the USA District Court are located on the second floor. Designed according to four different plans, they are all three stories in height and similarly finished with walnut wainscoting and plaster ceilings bordered by various geometric designs such as stars, waves, and squares. The courtroom of the United States Court of Appeals on the sixteenth floor is also finished in walnut, with a plaster ceiling, but has less elaborate detailing than the second-floor courtrooms.</p><br>
<p>One of Los Angeles&#39; most distinguished buildings, the United States Courthouse is directly on axis with, and complements, the massing of the twenty-eight-story Los Angeles City Hall (1926–1928), located across Temple Street to the south. It is also across the street from the fourteen-story Beaux Arts-style Hall of Justice (1925).</p><br>
<h2>Significant events</h2><br>
<p>1889–1892: The first federal building is constructed in Los Angeles.</p><br>
<p>1906–1910: As the first building proves inadequate, a larger, six-story federal building is built on the site of the existing USA Courthouse.</p><br>
<p>1937–1940: The USA Post Office and Courthouse (later known as the USA Courthouse) is constructed.</p><br>
<p>1940s: The courthouse is the venue for several high-profile Hollywood cases, including paternity suits against Charles Chaplin and Clark Gable.</p><br>
<p>1947: As anti-Communist fervor hits Hollywood, the House Un-American Activities Committee convenes in the building.</p><br>
<p>1965: The post office relocates. The first floor and portions of the Spring Street lobby are altered.</p><br>
<p>1993: Lucien Labaudt&#39;s mural Life on the Old Spanish and American Ranchos is returned to the Spring Street lobby.</p><br>
<p>2003: Edward Biberman&#39;s mural Los Angeles Prehistoric and Spanish Colonial is returned to the Spring Street lobby.</p><br>
<h2>Building facts</h2><br>
<p>Architect: Gilbert Stanley Underwood</p><br>
<p>Construction Dates: 1937-1940</p><br>
<p>Landmark Status: Determined eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places</p><br>
<p>Location: 312 North Spring Street, in the Los Angeles Civic Center</p><br>
<p>Architectural Style: Art Moderne</p><br>
<p>Primary Materials: Polished granite and glazed terra-cotta</p><br>
<p>Prominent Features: Stepped massing and ornamental aluminum grilles; sculptures in Main Street lobby; murals in Spring Street lobby</p><br>
<p>The USA Customhouse is a historic custom house located in San Francisco, California. It was built to house offices of the United States Customs Service.</p><br>
<h2>Previous custom houses</h2><br>
<p>The acquisition of the natural harbor of San Francisco Bay as a result of the US-Mexico War and the subsequent admission of California into the Union, plus the extraordinary boom resulting from the Gold Rush, and also the highly anticipated trade with Asia, together dictated the necessity for a custom house in San Francisco. The first custom house was established in an existing adobe building on Portsmouth Square in 1850. It was moved to a four-story brick structure constructed in June 1850, located at Montgomery and California Streets. Despite being made of brick, this structure succumbed to the Great Fire of 1851. The custom service was then temporarily relocated to the corner of Washington and Kearney Streets. In 1853, work began on a new custom house located on Battery Street between Jackson and Montgomery Streets. It opened in 1854, and remained in service for some six decades before being demolished in November 1905 to make way for the construction of the current structure.</p><br>
<h2>Construction of the present custom house</h2><br>
<p>In 1905, Eames & Young, a St. Louis architectural firm won a national design competition (juried by architect Thomas Rogers Kimball) for a new custom house. The firm was chosen under the auspices of the Tarsney Act (1890–1912), which allowed the Treasury Department to hire private architects rather than use only government designers. William S. Eames and Thomas C. Young were the firm&#39;s principals. They designed the building in the Beaux Arts Classicism style, which was popular as part of the City Beautiful movement that sought to create more appealing urban centers.</p><br>
<p>Ground was broken for the new custom house on January 28, 1906. Three months later, a devastating earthquake and subsequent fire decimated San Francisco. Because much of the city was being rebuilt simultaneously, there were severe labor and material shortages. As a result, construction of the custom house was not completed until 1911.</p><br>
<p>The USA Custom House was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1975. After the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, seismic and other upgrades were made from 1993 to 1997. While the building continues to serve many of its original purposes, the USA Customs Service is now the USA Customs and Border Protection, part of the Department of Homeland Security.</p><br>
<h2>Architecture</h2><br>
<p>The USA Custom House is an excellent example of the Beaux Arts Classicism style of architecture, which is characterized by classical yet exuberant details. Many important federal buildings were designed in this style during the late 19th century and early 20th century. Some elements of Beaux Arts Classicism that are found on the USA Custom House include a symmetrical facade and articulated entrances that are highlighted with granite entablatures and carvings. The main entrance on Battery Street has a grouping of sculptural figures over the cornice.</p><br>
<p>The imposing six-story building is faced in pale granite from Raymond, California. The concrete foundation of the building rests on timbers from the hull of the steamship Georgian, a vessel from San Francisco&#39;s gold rush days that was abandoned. The building essentially has a U-shaped plan that surrounds an oval, two-story pavilion that contains the post office and Custom Hall.</p><br>
<p>Like many buildings with Beaux Arts Classicism features, the facade is divided into three horizontal zones. The lower zone is a rusticated granite base with deeply recessed joints that extends across the first story. The middle zone is characterized by smooth granite with windows topped with pediments and cartouches (decorative ovals). The upper zone is a recessed fifth story, where stylized eagle motifs separate the windows, and parapet.</p><br>
<p>The interior of the USA Custom House contains a variety of high-quality finishes. Oak parquet floors are set in a herringbone pattern. Walls are paneled in oak with applied carved ornaments and inset with panels of green leather and decorated canvas. Other floors and walls are covered with marble. Ceilings are decorated with elaborate molded and painted plaster. The central lobby contains marble stairs and flooring, and a high ceiling with decorative plaster work.</p><br>
<p>The monumental Custom Hall originally functioned as the most important operational and public space. The rich finishes include a marble floor and applied plaster ornamentation such as pilasters (attached columns). The walls and vaulted ceiling of the Custom Hall are finished with plaster and painted with a vibrant color scheme. Three historic skylights were restored to their original appearance as part of a renovation and restoration in 1997. Large, arched windows dominate the space. The curved end walls of the room incorporate two large murals painted in 1915 by Abraham Lincoln Cooper, who also painted murals at the USA Courthouse and Post Office in Columbus, Ohio. Building the Panama Canal commemorates the completion of the canal in 1915, and Allegory of San Francisco is a representation of the port city. The paintings were restored in 1938 and 1971.</p><br>
<p>Another significant interior space is the Port Director&#39;s Office on the third floor. Originally used as an office suite by the Collector of Customs, the rooms have undergone only minor changes. Walls are paneled in oak with an ornamental frieze and a patterned cornice. The rooms contain stained oak parquet floors and a marble fireplace. The office was used as a set in the movie The Right Stuff in 1983.</p><br>
<p>The USA Custom House retains a high degree of architectural integrity. Relatively few changes have been made to the building since its construction. In 1997, a renovation that increased seismic resistance and upgraded electrical, plumbing, and data systems while preserving the historic character of the building was completed. Original historic finishes were restored as part of the project.</p><br>
<h2>Significant events</h2><br>
<p>1905: Design competition won by Eames & Young</p><br>
<p>1906: Ground broken for construction great earthquake and fire destroy much of San Francisco</p><br>
<p>1911: Construction completed</p><br>
<p>1975: USA Custom House listed in the National Register of Historic Places</p><br>
<p>1989: Loma Prieta earthquake</p><br>
<p>1997: Renovation completed</p><br>
<h2>Building facts</h2><br>
<p>Location: 555 Battery Street</p><br>
<p>Architect: Eames & Young</p><br>
<p>Construction dates: 1906–1911</p><br>
<p>Landmark Status: Listed in the National Register of Historic Places</p><br>
<p>Architectural Style: Beaux Arts Classicism</p><br>
<p>Primary Material: Granite</p><br>
<p>Prominent Features: Classical Facade; Custom Hall; Port Director&#39;s Office</p><br>
<p>The 50 United Nations Plaza Federal Office Building is a United States federal building located on United Nations Plaza between Hyde and McAllister Streets in San Francisco, California. The 1936 Neoclassical style building, designed by Arthur Brown, Jr., is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and is a contributing property to the San Francisco Civic Center Historic District, which is a National Historic Landmark.</p><br>
<h2>Building</h2><br>
<p>In 1906, a major earthquake devastated San Francisco and destroyed more than 28,000 buildings, many as a result of subsequent fires. As the city rebuilt, it adopted a plan for a civic center, first developed in 1899 by English architect B.J.S. Cahill, to consolidate government buildings in a central location. The last building completed for the San Francisco Civic Center, the Federal Building was a critical component of the seven-building complex that included government buildings, a library, and an opera house. The Civic Center design incorporates City Beautiful planning, a concept that relies on Beaux Arts design principles and classically inspired, monumental architecture. San Franciscos Civic Center is one of the nations most successful examples of the City Beautiful movement.</p><br>
<p>In 1927, the government allocated $2.5 million for the Federal Buildings design and construction, although final costs reached a total of $3 million. San Francisco city officials donated a site in 1930. Architect Arthur Brown, Jr. designed the building, which was constructed between 1934 and 1936, under the auspices of Supervising Architect of the Treasury Louis A. Simon. Brown studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, the worlds preeminent architectural school, graduating in 1901. He was the sole architect of the Federal Building, as well as the Opera House and Veterans Building, both significant components of the Civic Center. Brown and his partner John Bakewell, Jr. designed City Hall, a 1915 Beaux Arts architectural masterpiece. Also located within the Civic Center, the City Hall commission established the partners&#39; careers.</p><br>
<p>In 1975, construction commenced on United Nations Plaza, designed by noted landscape architect Lawrence Halprin and located next to the Federal Building. The one-acre pedestrian area was named to honor the establishment of the U.N., which occurred in the Veterans Building on June 26, 1945. The Federal Building is a contributing element to the San Francisco Civic Center, which the Secretary of the Interior designated a National Historic Landmark in 1987. The building was vacated in 2007 after the new federal building was constructed in San Francisco. The USA General Services Administration (GSA) took over the building in 2013 after its renovation.</p><br>
<h3>Architecture</h3><br>
<p>The Federal Building is an excellent example of Second Renaissance Revival architecture, displaying style-defining features such as distinct horizontal divisions, a rusticated base, and classical ornamentation including columns on the exterior elevations. The building occupies the block bounded by United Nations Plaza, and Hyde, McAllister, and Leavenworth streets. It has a rectangular footprint with an interior courtyard that allows natural light into the interior. The six-story steel frame is encased in fireproof concrete with concrete flooring and roof slabs, features that officials and architects agreed were important precautions after the fires resulting from the 1906 earthquake. The street elevation walls are constructed of brick but faced with granite, with the exception of a section of the McAllister Street elevation, which is faced in terracotta.</p><br>
<p>At the first two stories, the granite is rusticated to articulate the base of the building. The upper stories of the south facade, which faces United Nations Plaza, are covered with smooth-faced granite and dominated by a colonnade of detached two-story Doric columns that are aligned with Doric pilasters on the building. A classical balustrade supports the railing between the columns. Fenestration consists primarily of regularly spaced rectangular windows with multi-pane configurations. The attic story is set back from the wall plane of the building and is surrounded by a classical balustrade and topped by a molded cornice.</p><br>
<p>The main entrance, consisting of three arched openings, is located at the center of the south elevation. The central arch is topped by a keystone that contains a medallion with a carved shield motif, while the flanking arches each are topped by a medallion featuring an eagle holding olive branches. Secondary entrances are located on the southeast and southwest corners of the building, where the meeting points of the exterior walls have been designed as concave arc configurations. Round arches with ornate medallions placed on the keystones also mark these entrances, and Doric porticos are located above the second story of the corners. Male and female mascarons (carved faces) adorn the exterior. The carvings sport different horticulturally themed headpieces, including corn, wheat, cat tails, and oak leaves. The hipped roof is covered with light grey lead-coated copper.</p><br>
<p>The main entrance vestibule and first-floor lobby are the most grand and richly detailed interior spaces in the building. The terrazzo flooring features a marble border. Grey marble wainscot, rising to a height of more than twenty-seven feet, covers the walls. Above the wainscot, the cast-stone walls spring into the barrel vaulted ceiling, which features molded hexagonal, rectangular, and diamond-shaped decorative coffers and shell motifs. A detailed cornice and doorway surmounted with a triangular pediment add to the classically inspired design of the entry spaces.</p><br>
<p>Cast-stone arches separate the first-floor elevator lobby from the corridors. The original bronze elevator doors remain and bronze is also used on other historic elements of the elevator lobby, including a mailbox, clocks, telephone booths, and building directory and bulletin board frames. The lobby leads to an internal courtyard that is open to the sky. Walkways are interspersed with trees, shrubbery, and groundcover plantings.</p><br>
<p>Several significant interior spaces remain intact. The former Board Room for the USA Navy is located on the second floor. Paneled wainscot covers the lower portions of walls, while the upper areas are plaster. The former office of the General Inspector, Supply Corps is a rectangular room with rounded corners. Double-leaf French doors admit natural light and lead to an exterior balcony. A wood and plaster cornice tops the walls. The former Collector of Internal Revenue office contains a similar cornice and paneled wood wainscot covers the walls.</p><br>
<p>Another important interior space is the former naval Commandant&#39;s Suite, a circular ceremonial room, twenty feet in diameter, with adjacent offices, restroom, dressing room, and waiting room. The parquet oak floor contains a centrally placed USA Navy seal. An original fireplace with an ornate verde antique marble Rococo-style mantel remains in the room.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>In 1977, after frustration that the secretary of the United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare had delayed signing regulations implementing Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 for four years, disability rights protestors marched to this federal building and began a sit-in that became a 26-day occupation. This 504 Sit-in was led by Judith Heumann and organized by Kitty Cone. More than 150 demonstrators refused to disband; this action was the longest sit-in at a federal building to date. Joseph Califano signed the regulations on April 28, 1977.</p><br>
<p>In 1985, when the renamed United States Department of Health and Human Services was in this building, protestors with AIDS and AIDS-related complex chained themselves to the door of the building on October 27, to demand that the USA government increase funding for AIDS-related research, care, and social services. They stayed for weeks and began the AIDS/ARC Vigil, which was an encampment that stayed for ten years (until 1995).</p><br>
<p>In November 1985, activist Cleve Jones organized a candlelight march in remembrance of the 1978 assassinations of San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone, and he asked people to write the names of loved ones lost to AIDS-related causes on signs. At the end of the march, they taped the signs to the walls of this federal building. The signs taped to the building looked like a patchwork quilt to Jones, and he was inspired to start the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt with several collaborators.</p><br>
<h3>Significant events</h3><br>
<p>1927: Congress approves $2.5 million for new San Francisco Federal Building</p><br>
<p>1930: City of San Francisco donates site for building</p><br>
<p>1934–1936: Building constructed</p><br>
<p>1975: United Nations Plaza construction commences</p><br>
<p>1987: San Francisco Civic Center designated a National Historic Landmark</p><br>
<p>2007: Building vacated</p><br>
<p>2017: Building added to National Register of Historic Places</p><br>
<p>The Federal Building and United States Custom House, Denver, Colorado is a historic courthouse and federal office building located at Denver, Colorado. It is a courthouse for the United States District Court for the District of Colorado.</p><br>
<h2>Building history</h2><br>
<p>The Federal Building and USA Custom House is part of a complex of four federal buildings located in close proximity to each other in downtown Denver, the others being the Byron G. Rogers Federal Building and USA Courthouse, the Byron White USA Courthouse, and the Alfred A. Arraj USA Courthouse.</p><br>
<p>The federal government acquired the site, which was previously home to the East Denver High School, in three parcels between 1928 and 1930 for just under $300,000. The building replaced Denver&#39;s overcrowded 1892 custom house, located at another location in the city.</p><br>
<p>Designs for the original portion of the building, completed in 1931, came from the Office of the Supervising Architect of the USA Treasury, which at that time was led by James A. Wetmore. Both this building and the nearby Byron White USA Courthouse are clad in the same Colorado Yule marble used in the Lincoln Memorial and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Washington, D.C. Indiana limestone was originally planned for cladding the building, and would have been less expensive. However, members of Congress from Colorado successfully argued for use of local materials. The building was completed in May 1931 at a total cost of $1,260,000.</p><br>
<p>A 1937 addition nearly doubled the size of the building. Denver architects Temple Hoyne Buell and G. Meredith Musick designed the addition. The cladding material was once again controversial. In this case, Colorado Yule marble was substituted for Georgia marble after local officials successfully argued that the materials of the original building and addition should match, and that the revenue from the marble purchase should benefit Colorado.</p><br>
<p>Though it housed various federal agencies, the building&#39;s primary occupant was the USA Customs Service. Its revenues averaged $500,000 per year, and eventually climbed to $1,400,000 in 1957. In need of more space, the Customs Service moved to the former Stapleton Airport in 1957. The major building tenant is now the bankruptcy court. The building has been listed in the National Register of Historic Places since 1979.</p><br>
<p>During the 1960s and 1970s, protesters often used the USA Courthouse plaza across the street. In 1975, a bomb exploded in a first floor men&#39;s room of the building, but there was no significant structural damage. A group calling themselves the Continental Revolutionary Army took credit for the bombing.</p><br>
<h2>Architecture</h2><br>
<p>The five-story Federal Building and USA Custom House is a skillfully executed example of Second Renaissance Revival architecture. The arched first floor window and door openings, detailed cornices, emphasis on the horizontal elements, and stately overall appearance of the building are all characteristic of this architectural style. It has a steel frame on poured concrete footings and a flat composite roof. The base is clad in granite, as are the stairs leading to the entry doors. The remainder of the Nineteenth, Stout, and California street elevations of the building are clad in smooth-rubbed, coarse cut Colorado Yule marble with terra-cotta ornamentation. The fifth floor, which is recessed eight feet, is clad in brick, as are the courtyard-facing elevations of the building.</p><br>
<p>Marble quoins (cornerstones) highlight the transition from marble to brick facade. Terracotta is used for a belt course above the first floor, cornices, and spandrels between the windows of the second and third, and third and fourth stories. Decorative terra cotta swags are located above the ornamental grillwork that flanks the main entry door. The symmetrical plan is E-shaped with a semi-enclosed courtyard at the north end. The windows are spaced evenly and are designed to create a balanced overall look for the building. The tops of the first floor windows and the main entry doorway are arched. Spandrels that separate the second, third, and fourth story windows feature eagles and shields, emphasizing the federal use of the building. The primary entrance is on Nineteenth Street at the midpoint of the south elevation, and a penthouse is located above this central point that rises twenty feet above the parapet coping (decorative capping at the top of the wall).</p><br>
<p>The centered main entry is the focal point of the exterior. In 1972, the original bronze entry doors were removed and replaced with aluminum doors. A terracotta eagle tops a semicircular fanlight above the doorway. Tuscan order columns flanking the entrance support an entablature inscribed with the name of the building and capped by a decorative cartouche.</p><br>
<p>In the lobby, polished Colorado Yule marble surrounds the doors leading from the vestibule and clads the lower portion of the walls on either side of those doors. It also surrounds the elevators and extends for several feet on either side of the elevators, covering the lower portion of the walls. Only one of the light fixtures, which have oval etched-glass domes suspended within brass frameworks and hanging from the ceiling via brass chains, is original; the others were replicated. The bronze and leaded glass doors between the vestibule and the lobby were recently restored. Glass panes allow light to flood the lobby and the bronze surrounds and details reinforce the stately appearance of the building. There are staircases with marble treads at each end of the corridors leading off of the lobby. The layout of each floor of the building is identical, with offices lining each corridor. The wainscoting and baseboards are all marble, as are the bathroom partitions in the 1931 portion of the building.</p><br>
<p>The 1937 addition resulted in extensions to each side of the building that nearly doubled the area and made the central courtyard less visible from the street. Additional penthouses were added at the California and Stout Street ends of the building to house the upper portions of the elevator shafts. The corridors and lobby areas are largely intact, though the offices were modified.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>1931: Original building constructed</p><br>
<p>1937: Construction of addition</p><br>
<p>1975: Bomb explodes on first floor</p><br>
<p>1979: Building listed in the National Register of Historic Places</p><br>
<h2>Building facts</h2><br>
<p>Location: 721 Nineteenth Street</p><br>
<p>Architects: James A. Wetmore; Temple H. Buell with G. Meredith Musick</p><br>
<p>Construction Dates: 1930-1931; 1937</p><br>
<p>Architectural Style: Second Renaissance Revival</p><br>
<p>Landmark Status: Listed in the National Register of Historic Places</p><br>
<p>Primary Materials: Granite, marble, and brick</p><br>
<p>Prominent Features: Classical marble and terracotta facade; Bronze-framed double entry doors; Marble wainscoting, oak doors and trim</p><br>
<p>The William R. Cotter Federal Building is a historic post office, courthouse, and federal office building located at 135–149 High Street in Hartford, Connecticut. It was the courthouse for United States District Court for the District of Connecticut until 1963.</p><br>
<h2>Building history</h2><br>
<p>In 1882, the federal government completed construction of Hartford&#39;s first permanent post office building. By the 1920s, however, Hartford residents were campaigning for a new postal building to replace the overcrowded Second Empire-style structure. In 1928, the government selected a site for the new building, and two years later contracted the local architectural firm of Malmfeldt, Adams, & Prentice to design the building. Although the Public Buildings Act of 1926 authorized the Office of the Supervising Architect of the USA Treasury to hire private architects to design federal buildings, the Hartford project was one of the few times that the Act was actually invoked.</p><br>
<p>Construction commenced in 1931. On April 14, 1932, citizens and officials gathered for a cornerstone laying ceremony, and construction was completed the following year. The new building originally served as a post office, courthouse, and office building. It is one of Hartford&#39;s most notable examples of the Neoclassical architectural style, which was commonly used for public buildings during the early twentieth century. Architectural Forum cited the building as an example for private architects to follow when completing Public Works Administration commissions.</p><br>
<p>Major interior renovations to the federal building occurred in 1964 and 1978 after the courts and post office vacated the location. In 1982, the federal government renamed the building to honor Congressman William R. Cotter, who represented the First District of Connecticut from 1971 until his death in 1981. The building was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1981 and currently houses various federal offices.</p><br>
<h2>Architecture</h2><br>
<p>The William R. Cotter Federal Building is an excellent example of Neoclassical architecture. The architects adopted traditional classical architectural forms while abandoning excessive interior ornament in favor of Art Decos more stylized decorative components. The building conveys the federal governments dignity and stability, an ideology that was particularly important during the Great Depression.</p><br>
<p>The three-story federal building is situated on a trapezoidal block bounded by High and South Church streets and Foot Guard and Hoadley places in downtown Hartford. The building fills the entire block with its irregular footprint. However, a light court occupies the second and third stories, admitting natural light into the interior. The exterior has remained largely intact since the building&#39;s completion in 1933.</p><br>
<p>The steel-frame building rests on a granite foundation. The exterior is faced with Indiana limestone panels. The facade, which faces High Street, consists of a three-story central block flanked by pavilions. Limestone pilasters separate each bay on the central section, which features a projecting cornice topped with decorative cresting. Aluminum spandrels divide each story&#39;s casement windows, and spandrels between the first and second stories contain American eagle motifs. Simple recessed panels separate the second and third stories. Projecting pavilions, each containing two modified, Corinthian order columns, frame the two principal entrances located at each end of the High Street elevation. Wisconsin black marble surrounds the entryways. A curved terrace, enclosed by a granite-and-iron balustrade, stretches between the granite entrance steps. Armillary spheres, representing celestial order, are located at each end of the balustrade.</p><br>
<p>A frieze above the facade&#39;s third story bears a six-line, two-part inscription that alludes to postal service duties. The quotation is divided by low-relief figures on horse-back transferring a message, recalling the Pony Express and early postal delivery methods. Aluminum eagles with uplifted wings perch at each end of the cornice.</p><br>
<p>Interior spaces are richly ornamented. On the first floor, a principal corridor connects two main lobbies. The lobbies and corridor have their original black terrazzo flooring inlaid with decorative borders and patterns. Most notably, one panel contains Hartford&#39;s symbol, which is a hart, or stag, crossing water. Flat panels of polished, Ross Curley Gray Tennessee marble cover the walls and are placed above a red marble base. The first-floor vaulted ceiling is painted blue with metallic gold stars. Aluminum, half-spherical and pendant light fixtures descend from the ceiling. Stylized ornamentation includes chevrons and Greek key patterns.</p><br>
<p>The corridor contains original, Art Deco-style, interior finishes. Each end of the corridor floor is inset with a brass-and-terrazzo panel with an envelope motif. Pairs of engaged black marble columns with aluminum ribs and stylized Doric order capitals flank two murals at each end of the corridor. The murals, painted in 1934 by the Barker Painting Company of New York, depict the eastern and western hemispheres. A decorative frieze lines the top of the corridor walls. The corridor ceiling contains recessed, framed beams bearing medallions with depictions of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Abraham Lincoln.</p><br>
<p>The two original stairs are adjacent to the two first-floor elevator lobbies. The stairs are made of black soapstone treads and a decorative, aluminum railing. In select locations, the building contains original three-paneled, aluminum doors decorated with stars.</p><br>
<p>Although the federal building has accommodated various functions, it has been continuously occupied since its completion. However, these changes in use resulted in major interior renovations. Most notably, galleries and other postal features were removed when the spaces were transformed into office areas. The corridors, stairwells, and bathrooms retain historic features and finishes.</p><br>
<h2>Significant events</h2><br>
<p>1931–1933: Building constructed</p><br>
<p>1962: Federal courts vacate the building</p><br>
<p>1977: USA Postal Service vacates the building</p><br>
<p>1981: Building listed in the National Register of Historic Places</p><br>
<p>1982: Building renamed to honor Connecticut Congressman William R. Cotter</p><br>
<h2>Building facts</h2><br>
<p>Location: 135 High Street</p><br>
<p>Architects: Malmfeldt, Adams, & Prentice</p><br>
<p>Construction Dates: 1931–1933</p><br>
<p>Architectural Style: Neoclassical</p><br>
<p>Landmark Status: Listed in the National Register of Historic Places</p><br>
<p>Primary Materials: Granite; limestone; marble</p><br>
<p>Prominent features: Monumental entrances at corners of Facade; stylized art-deco motifs; lobby with original aluminum, marble, and terrazzo finishes</p><br>
<p>The Richard C. Lee United States Courthouse is a monumental courthouse of the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut, located on the east side of the New Haven Green. Built between 1913 and 1919, the structure was spared from a planned demolition in the 1960s, and instead renovated to continue its useful life. For many decades, it also served as a post office, although the post office moved to another location in 1979. It is an excellent example of Classical Revival architecture. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2015.</p><br>
<h2>Building history</h2><br>
<p>In 1910, landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. and architect Cass Gilbert, two of the most prominent designers working in America at the time, produced a city planning document for New Haven. They advised that the style, materials, and scale of the new courthouse and post office should respect the character of existing public buildings around the Green. James Gamble Rogers designed the building to achieve those goals, and it was constructed between 1913 and 1919. Rogers was also the architect for structures at Yale University, his alma mater. The building was the last to be designed under the auspices of the Tarsney Act (1890 - 1912), which allowed the United States Treasury Department to hire private architects rather than use only designers employed by the federal government. A cornerstone dedication ceremony was held in 1914. Former President William Howard Taft, then a professor at Yale Law School, spoke at the event, and the text of his speech was placed in the cornerstone, along with other mementos.</p><br>
<p>The courthouse was slated for demolition in the 1960s as part of an urban renewal plan. However, a coalition of federal judges and local historic preservationists rallied to save it. After much negotiation, the landmark was restored in the early 1980s at a cost of $7.3 million. Although some interior spaces were modified, the restoration respected the original character, and many historic components remain intact. In 1998, the building was renamed to honor Richard C. Lee, a former New Haven mayor who was a pivotal figure in the buildings preservation as well as the citys revitalization.</p><br>
<h2>Architecture</h2><br>
<p>The Classical Revival architecture style of architecture chosen for the Richard C. Lee USA Courthouse was commonly used for federal building design during the early twentieth century, because officials believed it conveyed the dignity of the federal government. The courthouse displays several hallmarks of the style, including the colossal portico (entrance porch with columns) and pediment (triangular gable end). The columns have Corinthian capitals with carved eagles and leaves. Niches flank the portico. The exterior of the building is clad in Tennessee marble, and the exterior stairs are pink Milford granite. Bronze window sashes, grilles, and the revolving doors provide contrast to the pale gray exterior.</p><br>
<p>Important citizens in New Haven&#39;s history inspired the inscriptions on the exterior. The frieze contains words from a sermon delivered by Reverend John Davenport in 1639: "Wisdom hath builded her house; she hath hewn out her seven pillars" (a quote from Proverbs). Davenport was referring to the seven men who were selected to serve as the first General Court, and their names are inscribed on the building. The upper walls of the interior light court were incised with the names of five other prominent New Haven citizens and three military heroes. A carved band tops the building and includes coquillage, which are stylized seashells. An acroterion, the ornament at the apex of the gable, is also a stylized shell.</p><br>
<p>The interior retains many original features and rich finishes. Marble floors and pilasters (attached columns) are found in the ornate entrance lobby. The coffered (recessed) ceiling is intricately detailed with rosettes. The interior wall contains an elaborate bronze screen that led to the original postal workroom. Other original features that remain include writing desks, radiator grilles, and pendant light fixtures, which were specially designed by Rogers.</p><br>
<p>The walls of the main stair and elevator lobbies are clad in the same Tennessee marble as the exterior. However, the marble was finished to reveal more pink tones. Ceilings in this area are vaulted plaster overlaid with gold leaf. Ornate bronze elevator fronts and grilles remain. On the second floor, the courtroom lobby is lined with twenty monolithic, Tennessee marble columns with bronze scrolled Ionic capitals. Marble flooring, wainscot, and benches contribute to the opulent finishes. A plaster cornice and coffered ceiling are painted in tones derived from the marble.</p><br>
<p>In a 1919 article featured in Architectural Forum, the courtroom was described as a "dignified, sumptuous room of perfect acoustic qualities." The lavish wall treatments combine fluted pilasters and paneling in quarter-sawn white oak that was stained a light olive color. The ornate plaster cornice and ceiling beams are finished to resemble the oak walls and highlighted with gold leaf.</p><br>
<p>Remarkably, very few alterations were made to the building throughout the years. By 1980, however, it had fallen into disrepair. From 1982 to 1985, it underwent a massive renovation and restoration. The work respected historic integrity while updating spaces to meet the needs of the courts and safety requirements.</p><br>
<h2>Significant events</h2><br>
<p>1638: New Haven Green created</p><br>
<p>1910: Frederick Law Olmsted and Cass Gilbert produce city plan</p><br>
<p>1913: Courthouse site purchased</p><br>
<p>1913-1919: USA Post Office and Courthouse constructed</p><br>
<p>1965: Building slated for demolition</p><br>
<p>1979: Postal service vacates building</p><br>
<p>1982-1985: Renovation and restoration</p><br>
<p>1998: Building renamed to honor former New Haven Mayor Richard C. Lee</p><br>
<h2>Building facts</h2><br>
<p>Location: 141 Court Street on the New Haven Green</p><br>
<p>Architect: James Gamble Rogers</p><br>
<p>Construction Dates: 1913 - 1919</p><br>
<p>Landmark Status: Eligible for the National Register of Historic Places</p><br>
<p>Architectural Style: Classical Revival</p><br>
<p>Primary Material: Tennessee Marble</p><br>
<p>Prominent Features: Classical Portico; Ornate Courtroom; Elaborate Lobbies</p><br>
<p>The USA General Services Administration Building is a historic office building and the headquarters of General Services Administration located at Washington, D.C. It was built originally to house offices of the United States Department of the Interior.</p><br>
<h2>Building history</h2><br>
<p>The USA General Services Administration Building, originally designed for the USA Department of the Interior, was the first truly modern office building constructed by the USA Government and served as a model for federal offices through the early 1930s.</p><br>
<p>New York architect Charles Butler (1871–1953) designed the innovative building in his capacity as consultant to the Office of the Supervising Architect under Oscar Wenderoth. Butler&#39;s design, patterned after private office buildings in New York and Washington, DC, allowed for the substantial amount of natural light necessary for the many architects, draftsmen, pressmen, and scientists working in the building. Construction of the restrained Neo-Classical building began in 1915 and was completed in 1917 at a cost of $2,703,494.</p><br>
<p>The Department of the Interior occupied the building from 1917 until 1937, a period significant in the department&#39;s history. The activities of the National Park Service were conceived in the sixth floor offices of Interior Secretary Franklin K. Lane. The USA Geological Survey, the largest tenant in the building, determined which public lands would be closed to development and conserved for their mineral and water resources. In 1921-1922 the building was the locus of the "Teapot Dome" scandal involving Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall. Harold L. Ickes, Secretary of the Interior under Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Truman, oversaw construction of dams, fully developed the National Park Service to provide recreational needs, and served as the first Federal Administrator of Public Works. They moved to the Main Interior Building.</p><br>
<p>In 1939, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) became the buildings primary occupant. PWA activities were subsumed into the newly created USA General Services Administration (GSA) in 1949 and the building was renamed the USA General Services Administration Building. In 1986 the building was listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 allowed the construction of glassy, energy-efficient new infill space in the GSA buildings East courtyard, and the modernization of half of the rest of the building. This new space, and an open floorplan, allowed employees from previously leased buildings in Crystal City and elsewhere to be moved into this historic building, which saves lease costs and serves as an example for other federal agencies. It continues to house GSA including the Public Buildings Service—the largest and most diversified real estate organization in the world.</p><br>
<h2>Architecture</h2><br>
<p>The USA General Services Administration Building, the first government building designed for the specific needs of a designated federal department, was the first federal building to use limestone facing and one of the first buildings in Washington, DC constructed of steel framing. It fills the entire city block between E, F, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Streets.</p><br>
<p>The site was thought by some Congressional representatives to be a poor location for a major federal building due to its distance from Capitol Hill. One Congressman stated in 1913, "Every time we build one of these buildings, we get them farther and farther out, after a while they will go to the city limits...it is not a good business policy to scatter these buildings everywhere.</p><br>
<p>The building was designed in an "E-shaped" configuration, creating open courtyards that provided maximum exposure to natural light and cooling breezes for all offices. This design resulted in glass covering fifty percent of the total wall surface on the street elevations and seventy percent of the total wall surface on the courtyard elevations. The facade was originally to have been built of brick, but substantial cost-savings measures undertaken during construction permitted the use of Indiana limestone for all of the building&#39;s exterior.</p><br>
<p>A large building, its exterior is presented without undue ornamentation. The major exterior decorative element is the centrally located F Street entrance. Pilasters and a modillioned cornice frame each of the three entry doors on the F Street facade. An eagle carved by Ernest C. Bairstow, a decorative sculptor from Washington, DC, is located over the central opening. Bairstow also provided the designs for the twenty-eight limestone panels in the frieze at the sixth story and the ornamental work on the F Street entrances. The entrance at the southern end of Eighteenth Street is sheltered by an iron and glass marquee overhanging the granite steps and part of a semi-circular driveway. This unusual entrance treatment was designed originally as a private entrance for the Secretary of the Interior, whose suite of offices was directly above on the sixth floor.</p><br>
<p>This suite on the sixth floor, now used by the GSA Administrator, is the most elaborate space in the building. It includes a private office, a private passage, and a private restroom complete with full bath, as well as a public reception room. Distinguished decorative features in the Administrator&#39;s Suite include English oak floor-to-ceiling panels and a relief plaster ceiling. The fireplace of carved French limestone is one of the few working fireplaces remaining in a Federal building in the United States. Beyond this suite, other interior amenities included iced drinking water in the halls, washbasins in each office, and an auditorium, the first such space in a Federal building.</p><br>
<p>A series of improvements have been made to office spaces to meet the evolving needs of the USA Department of Interior, Federal Works Administration, and USA General Services Administration. In the 1930s a seventh-floor addition was constructed on the roof and air-conditioning was installed throughout the building. Where necessary, extensive remodeling of original corridors was undertaken.</p><br>
<p>In 1999 the USA General Services Administration initiated a demonstration "First Impressions" project in the lobby and on the building&#39;s exterior. The goal of the "First Impressions" program is to change the way people perceive Federal buildings. Initiatives included restoring windows, cleaning exterior masonry, returning public corridors to original paint colors, replicating original corridor lighting, and creating model office space for the twenty-first century.</p><br>
<p>The US Government&#39;s technology and design consultancy is named 18F, after the building address.</p><br>
<h2>Significant events</h2><br>
<p>1915-1917: A federal building designed by architect Charles Butler is constructed for the USA Department of the Interior.</p><br>
<p>1935: The building undergoes alterations with the construction of a seventh floor and the installation of air-conditioning.</p><br>
<p>1937-1939: The USA Department of the Interior vacates the building and the Federal Works Administration becomes the primary tenant.</p><br>
<p>1949: The USA General Services Administration is established, absorbing the activities and offices of the Federal Works Administration.</p><br>
<p>1986: The USA General Services Administration Building is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.</p><br>
<p>1999-2002: Restoration, rehabilitation, and pilot modernization projects are undertaken through the newly initiated "First Impressions" Program.</p><br>
<h2>Building facts</h2><br>
<p>Architect: Charles Butler</p><br>
<p>Construction Dates: 1915-1917</p><br>
<p>Landmark Status: Listed in the National Register of Historic Places</p><br>
<p>Location: 1800 F Street, NW</p><br>
<p>Architectural Style: Neoclassical</p><br>
<p>Primary Materials: Indiana limestone</p><br>
<p>Prominent Features: E-shaped plan allowing for open courtyards; Carved stone eagle and limestone panels designed by Ernest C. Bairstow; Oak-paneled Administrator&#39;s Suite</p><br>
<p>The Cobblestone Inn is located along Ridge Road  in Oak-Orchard-on-the-Ridge, an unincorporated hamlet in the Town of Ridgeway, New York, United States. It is a cobblestone building dating to the 1830s.</p><br>
<p>At the time of its construction, it was a stagecoach stop on the busy east-west route paralleling the Lake Ontario shoreline. It remained in use as an inn into the mid-20th century despite the loss of stagecoach traffic to the railroads in the decades after its construction. It is believed to be the largest cobblestone building in the state. In 2007 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.</p><br>
<h2>Building</h2><br>
<p>The inn is located on the northwest corner of the junction of Route 104 and Oak Orchard River Road (Orleans County Route 53). It is roughly 800 ft west of where the highway crosses the Oak Orchard River, and thus the ground around it slopes gently eastward. The building itself is on a 1.3 acre graded lot, elevating it slightly above the intersection. There are houses to the west along either side of the road and woods to the east as it slopes to the river.</p><br>
<p>The building itself is a two-story L-shaped structure seven bays on the long leg, paralleling Oak Orchard River Road, and four on the short. It is faced in cobblestones, five rows per Medina sandstone quoin, with a hipped roof pierced by a single central brick chimney with stepped parapet walls at the north and west ends. There is a wide plain frieze below the overhanging eaves. Besides the quoins, the sills, lintels, and water table are all sandstone as well. On the east side are two modern wooden porches at entrances along that wall. There is visible evidence of the roofs that once sheltered both.</p><br>
<p>From the main entrance on the south wall, a long central entrance hall runs north to a long four-bay room and then ends in a group of service-related rooms. The second floor has, in addition to its small guest rooms, a similar room in that space. The interior retains much of its original plaster and Greek Revival woodwork. The main staircase has its original stringers, newels and balustrade.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The arrangement of the cobblestone facing is consistent with the middle period of the style, 1836–1845. The Inn did a lot of business on a competitive stage route. It is believed to be the largest cobblestone residence in North America.</p><br>
<p>Traffic on the stage routes declined first with the opening of the Erie Canal to the south, and then the rise of the railroads in the mid-19th century. The Inn was used not just as a travelers rest with bar and dining but as a meeting place for the town and a post office. Its business revived in the days of automobile tourism in the 1920s in that capacity. In the mid-20th century, that business declined when the New York State Thruway was built to the south in Genesee County. The Inn was run as a guest house and restaurant and antique shop until 2010 then reused as a residence. It has remained in that use, with no alterations, since then.</p><br>
<p>The interior layout with the large community room on the first floor which was used for town meetings, a post office for Oak Orchard until the early 1900s and a dining area. The Inn contained 5 rooms on the main floor. One very large dining room/guest retreat and at one time the post office/grocery store. A bar which dated back to its origin is located on the west side. A small tellers room and large kitchen with servants quarters off the kitchen. There is a restroom on the first floor which was originally a stairway to the cellar where food was prepared in the early 1800s. Remains of the bake oven still exist. A root cellar area led to a tunnel under Oak River Rd to the east. It is suspected to have been used to transport liquor, guns and/or runaway slaves. The tunnel collapsed in the 1950s and was filled in. Then leading to the second floor are two staircases one front for guests, leading to originally 7 guest rooms. The other off the kitchen to the caretaker quarters. The large caretakers room has a separate small room for children. A door on the second floor separated the guests from the caretakers. It opened to a wide hall with 3 rooms, then around the corner to another 4 bedrooms. There is a small space you can enter only from the attic to the second floor where rumors say slaves were hidden. There was very old graffiti found on the walls and saved under plexiglass. The original wallpaper in some rooms had hand-applied gold leaf on the border. There are samples of the wallpapers found in the house now located at the Cobblestone Museum, in Albion, NY. along with other items from the history of this wonderful place.</p><br>
<p>The Old Post Office, listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Old Post Office and Clock Tower, is located at 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. in Washington, D.C. It is a contributing property to the Pennsylvania Avenue National Historic Site. The building&#39;s 315-foot  high clock tower houses the "Bells of Congress," and its observation level offers panoramic views of the city and its surroundings. A historic federal office building, it now serves as a hotel.</p><br>
<p>Construction began in 1892 and was completed in 1899. The building is an example of Richardsonian Romanesque architecture, popular in the late 19th-century United States. Its bell tower is the third tallest structure in Washington, D.C., excluding radio towers. It succeeded an earlier 1839 building, the General Post Office, which was built in Classical Revival style on F Street NW. It was used as the city&#39;s main General Post Office until 1914 at the beginning of World War I.</p><br>
<p>The Pennsylvania Avenue landmark functioned primarily as a federal office building. It was nearly torn down during the construction of the surrounding Federal Triangle complex in the 1920s and 1930s, and 1970s. Instead, major renovations to The Old Post Office Building were made in 1976 and 1983. The 1983 renovation added to the office structure, a food court, a retail space, and a roof skylight over the building&#39;s central atrium. The building acquired the name of "Old Post Office Pavilion". A glass-walled addition on a former adjacent parking lot was added to the structure in 1991.</p><br>
<p>In 2013, the USA General Services Administration (GSA) leased the property for 60 years to a consortium headed by "DJT Holdings LLC", a holding company that Donald Trump owns through a revocable trust.</p><br>
<p>Trump developed the property into a luxury hotel, the Trump International Hotel Washington, D.C., which opened on September 12, 2016</p><br>
<p>September 12, 2016 Fox 5 DC. Retrieved: October 1, 2016.</p><br>
<p>and closed on May 11, 2022, after its sale to CGI Merchant Group. It reopened as the Waldorf Astoria Washington DC on June 1, 2022.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<h3>Construction and opening</h3><br>
<p>The United States Congress approved construction of a new post office for Washington, D.C., on June 25, 1890. The site, at the southeast corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and 12th Street, was chosen by Senator Leland Stanford in 1888 in the hope that the building would revitalize the Murder Bay neighborhood between the Capitol building and the White House. Willoughby J. Edbrooke, Supervising Architect of the Treasury Department, designed the structure in the tradition of the Romanesque Revival architecture of Henry Hobson Richardson. Construction began in 1892, and the building was complete in 1899. The total cost of construction was $3 million.</p><br>
<p>At the time of its completion, the Post Office Building contained the largest uninterrupted enclosed space in the city. Its clock tower reached 315 ft into the air. It was also the city&#39;s first building to have a steel frame structure, and the first to be built with electrical wiring incorporated into its design. The structure featured elevators with cages of highly intricate wrought iron, a glass covered atrium and mezzanine level, and floors, moldings, railings, and wainscoting made of marble. The atrium was 196 ft high, and 10 floors of balconies looked out onto the space (which provided interior light in an era when indoor lighting was not common). It boasted more than 39,000 interior electric lights, and its own electrical generator. Girders and catwalks spanned the atrium at the third floor level to allow post office supervisors to look down on the workers. The fifth floor housed executive offices in the corners. Each office had a turret, ornately carved wooden moldings, and red oak paneling. But there were problems with the structure. The Washington Star reported that the skylights and windows leaked air and water, the marble floors were poorly laid, and much of the construction was shoddy. The ninth floor was to have served as a file room, but a post-construction inspection showed it could not accommodate the weight. Technological advances in electricity and electrical wiring, mechanical engineering, heating, and movement of air made the building out of date as soon as it opened. The anticipated economic development, however, never occurred.</p><br>
<h3>19th century</h3><br>
<p>At the 1898 meeting of the American Institute of Architects, the structure was criticized as supremely ugly during a plenary address by New York City architect George B. Post. By the time it opened, the building was also too small to accommodate the government agencies which occupied it. The city postmaster had advocated a building with a 50,000 ft&sup2; footprint, but only 10,000 ft&sup2; were purchased. Treasury Department offices were to have taken over the eighth floor, but the structure was so overcrowded that this move was suspended.</p><br>
<p>A year after the building opened, an accident there took the life of Washington, D.C. Postmaster James P. Willett. On September 30, 1899, Willett fell 90 ft down an open elevator shaft. Nothing more than a flimsy wooden barrier prevented access to the shaft. Willett died a day later.</p><br>
<p>In the early 1880s, Senator Justin Smith Morrill and Senator John James Ingalls proposed razing all the structures between Pennsylvania Avenue and B Street (now Constitution Avenue) to the south to create a park. The influential McMillan Plan of 1902, however, proposed retaining the structure. (It could hardly have done otherwise, with the building only just having been completed.) Nonetheless, the same year the Washington Post editorialized in favor of its demolition. In 1906, discussing plans to beautify Washington, essayist Sammuel E. Moffett disparagingly called the building a "Kansas City emporium so utterly out of keeping with the general atmosphere of official Washington that it sets the teeth of architects on edge". Later that year, Senator Weldon B. Heyburn introduced legislation to authorize the federal government to purchase all the land between Pennsylvania Avenue (northeast side), the National Mall (south side), 15th Street N.W. (west side), and the USA Capitol grounds (to the east) for the construction of an architecturally "harmonious" set of massive office buildings. Heyburn&#39;s plan retained the architecturally dominating Post Office Building of 1899 with its commanding tower, but adjusted its Pennsylvania Avenue side to be parallel with the street.</p><br>
<p>The clock in the building tower was originally mechanical in nature, and kept accurate time via gravity. A cable was wrapped around a drum, and a large weight attached to the end of the cable. As the cable unwound due to the force of gravity, the clock hands turned. The cable was rewound once or twice a day.</p><br>
<h3>20th century</h3><br>
<p>In 1914, the District of Columbia&#39;s General Post Office moved to a larger Beaux Arts / Classical Revival building constructed next to recently completed Union Station of similar impressive style, taking advantage of heavy use of the national railroad system for speedier mail delivery. Although only 15 years old, the building at 12th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue was now commonly called the "old" post office. For the next forty years, the building served as office space for several government agencies.</p><br>
<p>The Old Post Office Building was slated for demolition during construction of the Federal Triangle. In 1926, the United States Congress enacted the Public Buildings Act, which authorized the construction not only of the Federal Triangle complex of buildings but also a new USA Supreme Court building opposite the east front of the United States Capitol on the site of the Civil War-era Old Capitol Prison, and north of the Library of Congress&#39;s Thomas Jefferson Building, completed in 1897. Government officials, other experts, and the press believed that the demolition of the 1898 District Building ("city hall" for the District of Columbia) and the Old Post Office Building, and the closure of many streets in the area, would follow. A Board of Architectural Consultants was created on May 19, 1927, to advise the federal agencies developing the Federal Triangle on how to proceed.</p><br>
<p>By July 1927, the board had fashioned a general plan for the area, but did not address whether the Old Post Office Building, the District Building, or the Southern Railway Building should be torn down. Planning for the complex was deeply influenced by the City Beautiful movement and the idea of creating a civic center to achieve efficiency in administration as well as reinforce the publics perception of government as authoritative and permanent. For the architectural style of the buildings, the board adopted the McMillan Plans recommendation of the Neoclassical style. Rather than a mass of tall, imposing buildings, two unifying open spaces (intended for ceremonial use, and under discussion by the Board at least by March 1928) would be utilized. The first would be a Circular Plaza (inspired by the Place Vendôme) bisected by 12th Street NW, and which would require the demolition of the Old Post Office Building.</p><br>
<p>By 1934, however, although the government had cleared land around the Old Post Office Building, Congress was increasingly opposed to demolishing the structure. Tearing down a structurally sound 35-year-old building during the Great Depression seemed foolish. But the executive branch agencies overseeing the Federal Triangle&#39;s construction still wanted it gone. Yet, it was not demolished. Four years passed. Although a push was made in 1938 to remove the Old Post Office Building, Senator Elmer Thomas defended it and attacked the erection of a Neoclassical office building in its place as financially unacceptable.</p><br>
<p>The effort to remove the building in 1938 was the last one for 30 years. Various reasons have been suggested for why the Old Post Office Building survived. A common claim is that the federal government, fighting the Great Depression, simply did not have the money. Press reports at the time, however, noted that voters would have punished congressmen who tore down a perfectly good building.</p><br>
<p>The Old Post Office Building&#39;s tower slowly became an iconic one in the city. The United States Information Agency often used it as a backdrop for propaganda films to be shown in foreign countries. In one instance, a portion of a film about Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn was filmed in the tower.</p><br>
<p>By the 1950s, and Eisenhower era, the neighborhood around the Old Post Office Building had also declined. Pennsylvania Avenue N.W. was marked by deteriorating homes, shops, and office buildings on the north side and monumental Neoclassical federal office buildings of the 1920s-30s era Federal Triangle on the south.</p><br>
<p>On October 10, 1956, the weight of the clock came loose from the cable and plunged through two floors, narrowly avoiding killing a man, who had just gotten up from his desk. The mechanical clock was later replaced with an electric one.</p><br>
<p>After observing the poor state of the Avenue during his inaugural parade from the United States Capitol to the White House, 35th President John F. Kennedy appointed a Presidents Council on Pennsylvania Avenue to study ways to improve the area. The councils draft plan was ready for Kennedy&#39;s approval almost two and a half years later when he was assassinated in Dallas Texas on November 22, 1963. The draft plan retained the Old Post Office Building.</p><br>
<p>Kennedys successor, 36th President Lyndon B. Johnson, agreed to move forward with the plan and appointed a Temporary Presidents Commission on Pennsylvania Avenue, although it did not hold its first meeting until May 21, 1965. The new commission recommended that the Old Post Office be torn down in favor of completing the plan for the Federal Triangle. The temporary commission managed to prevent development of the avenue which was contrary to the draft plan, but it never was able to win congressional approval for its plan. It ceased to function on November 15, 1969, due to lack of funds. A permanent Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corporation (PADC) was finally created by Congress on October 30, 1972.</p><br>
<p>An attempt to demolish the Old Post Office Building began in February 1970. The National Capital Planning Commission, a federal agency with legal jurisdiction over major building projects in the Washington metropolitan area, agreed (although it said the tower might be preserved). Within days, Wolf Von Eckardt, the influential architectural critic of The Washington Post, began campaigning for the structures preservation. No action was taken on the demolition project in 1970, and Von Eckardt continued to press for the buildings preservation in 1971. By early 1971, a group of local citizens and architects formed a group known as "Dont Tear It Down" (predecessor to the D.C. Preservation League). The groups members included Nancy Hanks, the politically influential chairwoman of the National Endowment for the Arts. Don&#39;t Tear It Down began heavily lobbying the PADC, the GSA (which owned the building for the federal government), White House, Congress, and D.C. city government to stop the demolition. Opposition to the demolition began to grow in the USA Senate, which held hearings on the buildings in April 1971. Preservation forces received a major boost in May 1971 when the federal Advisory Council on Historic Preservation recommended retaining it.</p><br>
<p>The Nixon administration, however, continued to seek its demolition so that Federal Triangle could be completed in time for the United States Bicentennial in 1976. But by this time, Senator Mike Gravel, chair of the Subcommittee on Public Buildings and Grounds of the Committee on Public Works was strongly opposed to the effort. Gravel sought allies in the United States House of Representatives, and in June 1972, the House Committee on Appropriations voted down Nixon&#39;s request for money to demolish the Old Post Office.</p><br>
<p>The Old Post Office was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. That same year, the GSA formally dropped its intention to demolish the building and instead developed a plan to preserve it. The National Capital Planning Commission agreed to the project.</p><br>
<p>Major renovation of the structure was made possible in 1976 by enactment of the Public Buildings Cooperative Use Act. The law gave GSA the legal authority to lease federal buildings and use the money received for renovations and upgrades. It also legalized the use of a portion of federal office buildings for commercial retail and restaurant use. The Old Post Office was the first major project begun under the law.</p><br>
<p>An $18 million renovation began in 1977. The building badly needed it: The atrium roof had been covered over, making the interior dark; the building leaked and had suffered extensive water damage; there was mold throughout the building; the tower was filled with five to six meters of pigeon droppings, and the heating system often broke down.</p><br>
<p>The GSA held a competition in 1978 to find a partner willing to redevelop the Old Post Office Building. The agency believed that the configuration of the interior space and downtown real estate market would support only a hotel. But the winning bid did not propose a hotel. A joint venture by four firms—McGaughy, Marshall & McMillan; Arthur Cotton Moore Associates; Associated Space Design, Inc. and Stewart Daniel Hoban & Associates—won the competition. GSA and the bidding team reached an agreement for a 55-year lease. GSA collected $166,000 a year in rent, which increased just 5 percent during the life of the lease. GSA also received a percentage of all profits from the enterprise.</p><br>
<p>The $29 million renovation was completed in 1983. Much of the building was gutted to utilize the interior space more efficiently, but some "preservation zones" were established to retain the interior&#39;s historic character. Much of the old marble was replaced with new, pink marble, and the interior repainted in shades of cream, gray, green, and ivory pastels. A glass-enclosed elevator to the observation deck was also added, The retail section included a performance space known as the Nancy Hanks Center.</p><br>
<p>Hanks died on January 7, 1983, just weeks before the building&#39;s re-opening. The clock tower and observation deck reopened to the public on May 1, 1984. The 1983 renovation won strong praise from architectural critic Benjamin Forgey.</p><br>
<p>The commercial space was designed by the Boston firm of Benjamin Thompson & Associates, and it was leased by Evans Development Co. of Baltimore. More than 50 restaurants and boutique retail stores were anticipated to sublet portions of the three-story retail section, and it was 98% leased at its opening. During the mid-1980s, Hillman Properties bought out its partner, Evans Development, and took control of the Old Post Office Pavilion.</p><br>
<p>In 1980, a statue of Benjamin Franklin, originally created in 1889, was placed outside the building near the front entrance, where it currently stands.</p><br>
<p>In 1983, Congress enacted legislation formally renaming the Old Post Office the Nancy Hanks Center.</p><br>
<p>During 1983, the District of Columbia government and the United States Postal Service created a 14 feet by 21 feet wooden replica of the Postal Service&#39;s new 1984 twenty-cent "Love" stamp (see Post-World War II United States postage stamps and postal history).</p><br>
<p>Starting in 1984, replicas of the latest versions of the "Love" stamp were lowered from the spire of the Old Post Office Buildings Clock Tower around midnight during each New Years Eve.</p><br>
<p>Musicians entertained ballroom dancers within the building while fireworks and searchlight beams illuminated the night-time sky and celebrities performed on outdoor stages. At midnight, bells pealed from the tower and neon signs flashed "Happy New Year" amid laser light shows. As 1985 waned, D.C. Mayor Marion Barry predicted: "We&#39;re going to outdo New York. We think we might just take over and become the best single event."</p><br>
<p>The stamp became larger over the years. The celebration that marked the beginning of 1986 featured a 900 lb illuminated replica of that year&#39;s twenty-two cent puppy "Love" stamp. By the beginning of 1990, the neon-lighted stamp had reached a size of 20 feet by 30 feet and a weight of two tons (1814 kg).</p><br>
<p>Up to 100,000 people celebrated at the event during each of its early years. However, after the celebration marking the beginning of 1986 had ended, clean-up crews found a strangled and raped 18-year-old woman dead in a stairwell 100 yards away from an indoor stage at which Cab Calloway had earlier performed. Although the event that marked the beginning of 1988 was orderly and well-attended, the D.C. government withdrew its funding later that year because the event&#39;s costs had become prohibitive.</p><br>
<p>Attendance at the event then fell precipitously. As a result, the Postal Service decided in 1990 to stop dropping the stamp. Although the Pavilion hosted a party for 2,500 during which a smaller version of a "Love" stamp descended within the building&#39;s atrium to mark the beginning of 1991, the outdoor events disappeared.</p><br>
<p>Despite the positive news about the Old Post Office Pavilion, it was not doing well. GSA imposed conditions on the 1983 renovation that left the retail pavilion looking like an office building rather than a shopping mall. There was also too little retail space, the retail space was poorly configured due to the architectural design of the building, and GSA refused to allow any storefronts on the exterior that would signal that there was retail or restaurants inside.</p><br>
<p>Old Post Office Joint Venture, a group led by Hillman Properties, the developer of the pavilion, was also losing money. Old Post Office Joint Venture (OPOJV) received $166,000 a year in rent from GSA, but its agreement with the federal government called for doubling the size of the retail space to 100,000 ft&sup2;. Approval for that expansion had never been given. OPOJV originally proposed expansion of the retail space into the Internal Revenue Service Building, but this was rejected for security reasons. It then proposed an underground parking lot and pavilion expansion in the area occupied by the IRS building&#39;s parking lot, but this, too, was not approved.</p><br>
<p>With the financial situation at the Old Post Office Pavilion worsening, OPOJV proposed building a glass-enclosed annex on the IRS building&#39;s parking lot. The proposal was strongly opposed by the D.C. Historic Preservation Review Board. Nonetheless, Congress appropriated $1.7 million for the project and OPOJV agreed to contribute another $15 million. The National Capital Planning Commission also gave its approval to the project.</p><br>
<p>The new East Atrium opened on March 6, 1992. The three-level structure had 100,000 ft&sup2; of interior space and a glass roof. Under the terms of the development agreement, the federal government owned the land beneath the structure, but the building was owned by Hillman Properties. As construction occurred, the Old Post Office Pavilion lost many of its high-end retailers and replaced them with low-end shops selling mugs, souvenirs, T-shirts, and other items aimed at tourists. The East Atrium, however, included larger and more upscale retailers. The addition also featured a 5,000 ft&sup2; miniature golf course and bar. The East Atrium was managed by General Growth Properties, which said about 78 percent of the space was leased. The East Atrium was not well received, critically. Architecture critic Benjamin Forgey acknowledged that the building achieved its goals; incorporated many modern architectural design features (such as glass curtain walls, setbacks, and good connections to sidewalks and pedestrian areas); and it added a piece of the 1982 master plan for Federal Triangle. But Forgey called the design by the local architectural firm of Karn Charuhas Chapman & Twohey awkward, with "clunky" proportions and over-heavy elements. The interior, however, won praise for its lightness.</p><br>
<p>A small fire broke out on the west side of the Old Post Office Building between the ninth floor ceiling and the roof on August 26, 1992. Workers repairing the roof accidentally caused the blaze, which began at 3:45 pm and was extinguished 45 minutes later. Although small, the fire snarled downtown traffic during the evening rush hour.</p><br>
<p>By October 1993, despite more than 3 million visitors a year, OPOJV was behind on its rent to GSA and in default on its mortgage to Collin Equities (a subsidiary of Wells Fargo). Real estate experts blamed the cost of heating and cooling the vast atrium, heavy tenant turnover, and the lack of a theater for a space below the East Atrium. Although the D.C. Convention and Visitors Association said the Old Post Office was the eighth most-visited attraction in the District of Columbia, retail experts believed it had never made money, and the East Atrium did not bring in enough rent to support the Old Post Office Pavilion.</p><br>
<p>Collin Equities/Wells Fargo foreclosed on OPOJV in October 1993. The bank hired Hill Partners, a real estate management firm from Charlotte, North Carolina, to revitalize the retail aspects of the development. Hill Partners said that improving access to and shoppers&#39; awareness of the retail area, it could double the number of visitors to the Old Post Office to more than 7 million. Hill Partners began reevaluating its tenant mix with a view to adding retailers which D.C. residents needed. It also revealed that the East Atrium was a money-loser, never filling more than half its space. Whether the East Atrium would remain open was not clear. The company agreed, however, to keep the Pavilion area a "festival marketplace" (one which offers a combination of entertainment, food, and retail shops).</p><br>
<p>In March 1995, the Cineplex Odeon Corporation said it would open a seven-screen movie theater in East Atrium (which now had no tenants).</p><br>
<p>Hill Partners had a difficult time finding any new tenants for the East Atrium and for the Pavilion. Virgin Group said in June 1996 it might build a Virgin Megastore, 8-to-12 screen Virgin Cinema, and possible a rock music-themed restaurant at the Old Post Office. But the company wanted the main building for its retail outlets, not the East Atrium. But nothing came of these discussions.</p><br>
<p>In 1997, a hotel development firm, Denhill D.C. LLC, approached GSA and offered to take over Collins Equities/Wells Fargo lease. The company said it would spend more than $100 million to turn the office space on the upper floors into hotel rooms and open the Pennsylvania Avenue walls to create more access and street-front retail space. In return, the company asked the GSA to extend the 55-year lease to 65 years, and give it the option of adding three more decade-long lease extension options. According to Denhill D.C. officials, the negotiations were so far advanced that they had a management company ready to operate the hotel and retail tenants ready to take space. GSA said it then ended the negotiations over legal concerns that it was about to enter into a long-term lease without advertising it to other bidders.</p><br>
<h3>21st century</h3><br>
<p>By August 2000, business conditions at the Old Post Office had sunk even lower. Operations there had never turned a profit in 17 years, the vacancy rate in the Pavilion was 80 percent, the East Atrium was closed, and GSA had stopped charging Wells Fargo rent because no income was being generated. Realizing that a retail/office combination was not going to make money, GSA began negotiating with Collins Equities/Wells Fargo to cancel the lease. GSA by now had realized that if retail space was to be retained, it would need to open onto Pennsylvania Avenue NW. But the agency also was considered scrapping the retail floors and turning them into office space or getting rid of both retail and office space to allow the structure to be developed as a hotel. The hotel option was proving far more appealing than in the early 1980s because of the agency&#39;s overwhelmingly positive experience in allowing Kimpton Hotels to transform the 170,000 ft&sup2; vacant Tariff Commission Building into a 172-room luxury Hotel Monaco.</p><br>
<p>On December 28, 2000, GSA submitted the plan for the Old Post Office, as required by the Omnibus Consolidated and Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act of 1999. On June 15, 2001, Senators Robert Smith, Harry Reid, Ben Nighthorse Campbell, and Byron Dorgan sent a letter to GSA giving consent for GSA to expend such funds as necessary to acquire by purchase the leasehold rights of the lease at the Old Post Office, if certain conditions were followed.</p><br>
<p>In 2002, lobbyist Jack Abramoff engaged in extensive illegal discussions with GSA chief of staff David Safavian an attempt to secure the lease on the structure for a Native American tribal client. Abramoff took Safavian on an all-expenses-paid golf trip to Scotland, during which time they discussed turning the lease over to the unidentified tribe. Savafian was later convicted of perjury for lying about his relationship with Abramoff.</p><br>
<p>The GSA issued a Request for Expression of Interest in 2004 for developing the Old Post Office Building. Several companies expressed interest, but GSA did not proceed further.</p><br>
<p>Beginning in 2002, a major push was made to convert the building into the National Womens History Museum and a bill to do so passed in the United States Senate in 2005. However, local developers, city residents, and members of the House of Representatives were angry that the building would be given away for free. The bill was reintroduced in the 109th United States Congress, although this time the womens museum asked for only the East Atrium. This effort, too, was unsuccessful, even though the East Atrium had broken floor tiles and unfinished interior construction that exposed beams and left gaping holes instead of storefronts.</p><br>
<p>In March 2005, GSA issued a request for information (RFI) and received more than 20 responses. However, the agency did not receive approval from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to proceed to a request for proposals (RFP). OMB did not believe that the responses to the RFI showed that redevelopment was in the best financial interest of the federal government, however.</p><br>
<p>In June 2006, as a result of the Mid-Atlantic United States flood of 2006, record-setting rainfall of 12.11 in fell on Washington. The basement of the Old Post Office Building flooded, as did the William Jefferson Clinton Federal Building (headquarters of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives), the Herbert C. Hoover Building (headquarters of the United States Department of Commerce), the Internal Revenue Service Building, the National Archives Building, and the Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building. The Old Post Office Building, one of those on higher ground, reopened after two days. Most of the other buildings remained closed for a week.</p><br>
<p>In 2007, GSA estimated, that it would cost more than $100 million to modernize the structure. GSA also said that while it earned $5.4 million in rent at the Old Post Office Building in 2007, it spent $11.9 million on administrative and maintenance, for a loss of $6.5 million.</p><br>
<p>In 2008, Eleanor Holmes Norton, D.C.&#39;s Delegate to Congress, introduced the "Old Post Office Building Redevelopment Act of 2008" (H.R. 5001) to require GSA move faster on issuing a request for proposals. During hearings before the Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, members of Congress singled out the Old Post Office Building for under-utilization. The legislation passed the House on June 23, and the Senate on September 26. President George W. Bush signed it into law (P.L. 110–359) on October 8. As enacted, the Redevelopment Act required the GSA to proceed with redevelopment of the Old Post Office Building and relocate all federal tenants. It required the GSA to report to the appropriate House and Senate committees regarding any redevelopment agreement, and barred any redevelopment plan from coming into force until 30 days of a continuous session of Congress had passed.</p><br>
<p>On July 12, 2008, the National Capital Planning Commission issued its National Capital Framework, a plan designed to govern development in Washington, for the next 50 years. The plan was supported by the United States Commission of Fine Arts, the federal agency with legislative authority to approve the aesthetic design of all major buildings in the D.C. metropolitan area. The National Capital Framework specifically asked that the Old Post Office Building be renovated in order to improve public amenities and support the ongoing revitalization of Pennsylvania Avenue.</p><br>
<p>By October 2010, no major redevelopment goals had been met. The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee strongly criticized GSA in a report for mismanaging the Old Post Office Building. The report specifically accused GSA of not moving to redevelop the property during a real estate boom in 2006. When the boom ended, GSA was stuck with the property, and the House committee accused the agency of losing more than $25 million on maintenance rather than generating income. With pressure building on the White House to deal with billions of dollars worth of excess or underutilized federal property, the Barack Obama administration said it would take action to more quickly dispose of property like the Old Post Office. Rather than sell property at fire sale prices, the administration created a new independent advisory panel to help create a disposal plan for each individual building. D.C. area lawmakers pressed the advisory panel to act immediately on the Old Post Office. Douglas Firstenberg, a principal with StonebridgeCarras, a real estate property management firm that helped the federal government lease buildings, said that historic preservation restrictions and the large number of existing tenants made redevelopment difficult.</p><br>
<h4>Trump International Hotel</h4><br>
<p>In March 2011, A new RFP was finally issued by GSA. In all, GSA received 10 bids, most of which were hotels. Among the proposals were a luxury hotel and a National Museum of the Jewish People.</p><br>
<p>Other bidders included The Trump Organization, Carpenter, Monument Realty, JBG Smith, and a partnership of Hilton Worldwide and Metropolitan Partnership, Ltd.</p><br>
<p>On February 6, 2012, GSA announced that it had chosen The Trump Organization as the potential redeveloper of the Old Post Office Building. The company partnered with Colony Capital, a private equity firm, in its bid. The Trump Organization bid pledged to spend $200 million to turn the structure into a 250-room luxury hotel. Much of the investment would be in cash, not debt.</p><br>
<p>The Trumps stated that the hotel would include a conference center, spa, three high-end restaurants, and a 35,000 ft&sup2; meeting and banquet facility. The company also pledged to create a small museum dedicated to the history of the building and the Bells of Congress, and to maintain the historic exterior.</p><br>
<p>Local residents and advocates of historic preservation expressed a number of concerns about the successful Trump bid. Preservationists stated that Trump would not respect the historic nature of the building and had almost no experience renovating historic properties.</p><br>
<p>In response, government officials stated that the United States Commission of Fine Arts (whose secretary signaled heavy scrutiny for any changes) would need to approve any redesign. The Trump Organization bid touted the involvement of Arthur Cotton Moore, a noted local architect who had earlier renovated historic buildings within the area and had helped design the Old Post Office Building renovations during the 1970s.</p><br>
<p>Moore, however, left the effort for health reasons within a year. Another preservationist architect, John Cullinane, who had been working on the project resigned "because I couldn&#39;t support what they were doing to the building... hey were covering up or tearing out everything that was historic...".</p><br>
<p>Some city residents worried that Trump would block access to the clock tower. However, the National Park Service stated that it would retain control over the clock tower and observation deck and would keep them open for tours.</p><br>
<p>Washington Post business columnist Steven Pearlstein questioned the financial wisdom of selecting Trump/Colony Capital, given Trumps extensive problems with bankruptcy and Colony Capitals current problems keeping its hotel properties out of receivership. Pearlstein and local hoteliers argued that the market would not support the room rates that Trump intended to charge, and therefore would not be able to support the excessive amount of redevelopment money and rent that Trump was paying for the property.</p><br>
<p>Robert Peck, Commissioner of the GSAs Public Building Service, defended the selection, arguing that the Trump/Colony Capital bid was by far the best in terms of financial commitment, experience in renovating and managing properties, and quality of design. Peck dismissed criticism about Trumps numerous past bankruptcies, noting that these mostly concerned casinos rather than hotels. In addition, Washington Post business reporters Petula Dvorak and Jonathan O&#39;Connell expressed their opinion that the new Trump hotel would help spark an economic renaissance in its downtown Washington neighborhood.</p><br>
<p>In March 2012, The Washington Post reported that Monument Realty offered a base rent much higher than that of The Trump Organization. Monument and development partner Angelo, Gordon & Co. proposed a 260,000 ft&sup2; office building with a media center on the first three floors. It also proposed demolishing the annex in favor of a parking garage. Monument Realty bid for the building with a lease price of $5.1 million annually, with rent increases based on the buildings performance. The Trump Organization, however, offered $200 million in redevelopment dollars, while Monument would have provided just $116.5 million. GSA scored submission based on experience and past performance, design concept, financial capacity and capability, and initial development investment. It was unclear, therefore, that Monuments bid was superior to The Trump Organization&#39;s bid.</p><br>
<p>Another bidder, BP-Metropolitan Investors, filed an official protest in April 2012 against GSA for awarding the redevelopment to The Trump Organization. The bidding group, which included Hilton Worldwide, said GSA failed to take into account Trump&#39;s repeated bankruptcies and unrealistic economic assumptions. GSA said Metropolitan lost the award because it offered to spend only $140 million to renovate the building. GSA responded to the protest by noting that since the redevelopment was not a procurement, there were no legal grounds for protesting its decision.</p><br>
<p>In the summer of 2012, The Trump Organization asked the District of Columbia to waive possessory interest taxes on the Old Post Office Building. The possessory interest tax was estimated at $3 million in 2012, although it would likely be far more once the property was fully redeveloped. D.C. tax officials denied the waiver. Pedro Ribeiro, a spokesperson for Mayor Vincent C. Gray, said, "It was never part of the bid proposal that the project would not be subject to the tax." David Orowitz, the Vice President for Acquisitions and Development in The Trump Organization, said that the denial of tax waiver was not a surprise and would not change the financial calculations of the company&#39;s bid. Donald Trump later denied seeking any tax waiver.</p><br>
<p>As the clock ticked on the one-year deadline to finalize a deal with GSA, The Trump Organization hired Streetsense, a real estate and retail design firm, to select restaurants and retailers for the Old Post Office Pavilion. Trump chose the company over local real estate developer Douglas Jemal and retail design firm Ashkenazy Acquisition. Tiffany & Co. was among the retailers the company talked to.</p><br>
<p>Six development meetings were held with GSA, the CFA, D.C. government officials, and The Trump Organization between February and December 2012. Determining what was acceptable redevelopment was critical if a final lease agreement was to be signed. The Trump Organizations new design team consisted of the firms Beyer Blinder Belle and WDG Architecture (formerly Edwin Weihe & Associates). The Trump Organization proposed extending 11th Street NW south of Pennsylvania Avenue NW. City officials asked that a half-block of C Street NW south of the hotel be reopened with redevelopment money, too, but The Trump Organization declined the request. The architectural team proposed adding retail on all four corners of the Old Post Office Building, and building a new mezzanine level inside it (with a restaurant on top and a spa and fitness center below). Historic preservation agencies refused to allow various types of canopies or signs bearing the hotels name along Pennsylvania Avenue, and six alternative designs for the East Atrium were rejected out of hand by the CFA. But still under consideration was a proposal to convert the lower level of the East Atrium into parking with the upper level retained as a ballroom.</p><br>
<p>By late January 2013, no final lease agreement had been reached. However, both The Trump Organization and GSA said that they were closing in on a deal, and GSA said it was unlikely to reopen the bidding process if one was not reached by the 12-month deadline. Trump officials and GSA attributed the delay to the length of the lease, which created complexities that needed time to be resolved. GSA also said there were also unique issues raised by the building&#39;s historic status. Nonetheless, federal law required the GSA to reach a deal by June 2013 or reopen the bidding process.</p><br>
<p>Donald Trump asserted that a deal was "weeks" away in mid-April 2013. But even as he said that, contrary to rumor, he was not seeking to renegotiate his initial agreement with GSA, The Trump Organization re-evaluated its partnership with Colony Capital. Trump said his company was likely to either replace Colony or finance the entire redevelopment deal in cash. GSA officials said any such change would not affect the negotiations.</p><br>
<p>The Trump Organization cleared several regulatory hurdles in April and May 2013. On April 28, the Commission of Fine Arts gave non-binding, preliminary approval to the company&#39;s draft redevelopment plan. On May 16, GSA completed an environmental impact assessment (EIA) which concluded the redevelopment would have no significant adverse historic, land use, or transportation impacts. The EIA also concluded that the hotel would generate about $6.5 million per year in hotel bed tax revenue and $1.5 million in sales tax revenue.</p><br>
<p>On June 4, GSA reached a final agreement with The Trump Organization regarding redevelopment of the Old Post Office building. The Trump Organization negotiated a 60-year lease under which it paid $250,000 in rent per month, with annual increases tied to the Consumer Price Index. To allay concerns by critics that he too often defaulted on developments, Trump agreed to provide a $40 million personal guaranty as well as a "bad acts" (to cover failure to pay taxes, fraud, or other forms of misconduct). The Trump Organization agreed to pay all taxes, although the lease did not bar the company from seeking a historic preservation tax credit.</p><br>
<p>The Trump Organization agreed to turn the Old Post Office building into a 260-room some said 270, some said 271, and others 275). Many of the rooms would have 25 ft high ceilings, The average room was expected to be 600 ft&sup2; in size,</p><br>
<p>In what were formerly the offices of the Postmaster General of the United States, the company planned two "presidential suites" of 3,000 ft&sup2; each with 16 ft ceilings. Each presidential suite would have a working fireplace, sauna, steam room, walk-in closet, direct-access elevators, and views of Pennsylvania Avenue NW and the National Mall.</p><br>
<p>Redevelopment plans included an art gallery, café, bar, fitness center, library, lounge with fountain, meeting rooms, spa, two or three upscale restaurants, several luxury retail shops, a 4,000 ft&sup2; Mar-a-Lago brand spa, and a small museum about the building, its clock tower, and its bells. The Trump Organization agreed to continue to allow the public access to the clock tower and observation platform. The National Park Service agreed to operate the clock tower tours. The exterior of the building (including the multicolor brick and granite pavement designed by Aleksandra Kasuba) would be preserved in its historic state. Pending approval by regulatory authorities, The Trump Organization proposed building a floor over the ground level (turning the mezzanine into a floor), although the grand staircase would remain. Most of the retail would occupy the ground and second floor, while the historic Stamp Counter on the east side of the ground floor would become the hotel registration desk.</p><br>
<p>Major changes were made to the 86,000 ft&sup2; East Atrium and the streets around it. The Trump Organization intended to convert the 34,400 ft&sup2; basement level into a 150-space parking garage, with a 31600 to 35000 sqft ballroom on the ground level and 20,000 ft&sup2; of conference room space on the second floor. The ballrooms size would make it the largest in any luxury hotel in the city. The city agreed to extend 11th Street NW into the Federal Triangle south to C Street NW to provide access for automobiles. The Old Post Office Buildings entrance on 11th Street NW would again be the structure&#39;s main entrance (opening the door on the long-closed side of the building). Pending final regulatory approval, a new steel and glass canopy will be constructed over the new entrance and a "Trump International Hotel" sign suspended inside the entrance arch.</p><br>
<p>The 12th Street NW entrance would become the secondary entrance, providing public access to the restaurants and retail stores. Awnings would be over windows and the entrance on the ground floor, and a sign for the hotel added over the entrance. Outdoor seating would be added on the 12th Street NW, 11th Street NW, and Pennsylvania Avenue NW sides of the building. C Street NW would not be reopened to automobile traffic. The Trump Organization said it would remove the ahistoric glass and steel ground floor storefront on the C Street side and expand and renovate the public plaza there by adding outdoor seating and a performance space.</p><br>
<p>With the lease signed, Ivanka Trump said construction would begin immediately after the building was turned over to The Trump Organization.</p><br>
<p>On November 14, 2016, the National Park Service approved Part 2 of the Trump organization&#39;s application for a tax credit in the amount of 20% of the rehabilitation cost of the building, estimated in the original application at $160 million. The final step would be the filing of Part 3 to collect the tax credit on the actual cost upon the completion of the construction.</p><br>
<p>Under the 2008 redevelopment law, Congress had 30 days to disapprove the lease or it would become final. Anticipating no problems from the legislature, GSA began relocating the existing federal tenants in the Old Post Office Building.</p><br>
<p>Another major regulatory hurdle was cleared by The Trump Organization in early July 2013. The staff of the National Capital Planning Commission recommended to the agency that it approve the redevelopment plans. The NCPC staff report suggested that GSA and The Trump Organization continue to work on exterior signage designs to ensure they are appropriate. The full commission approved the staff report and gave preliminary approval to the company&#39;s building plans. The NCPC asked the organization to return in fall 2013 with final plans.</p><br>
<p>On August 5, 2013, Congress allowed the lease between GSA and The Trump Organization to go into force. The Washington Business Journal reported that the lease called for a 263-room The D.C. Preservation League (the former Don&#39;t Tear It Down) said it supported the Trump redevelopment of the site.</p><br>
<p>The Trump Organization hired the interior design firm of Hirsch Bedner Associates to work on the interior of the Old Post Office Building.</p><br>
<p>The $200 million renovation began on May 1, 2014, with the closure of the clock tower. Changes to the structures exterior included the removal of the words "OLD POST OFFICE" from the central arch of the buildings main entrance and the placement beneath that arch of a bar containing the words "TRUMP INTERNATIONAL HOTEL".</p><br>
<p>The Trump International Hotel Washington, D.C. opened to paying guests with a "soft opening" on September 12, 2016. The hotel&#39;s grand opening was celebrated on October 26, 2016.</p><br>
<p>A December 2016 review in Vanity Fair described the hotel as grand on the outside, a complete disaster and "a frightful dump" on the inside. In December 2016, Luxury Travel Intelligence reviewed the Trump Hotel and found major shortcomings in its service and operations. It called the decor "garish", said that it was not suited to the discerning business traveler, and ranked it as the third worst hotel in the world. On February 20, 2018, the hotel was named to the Forbes Travel Guide Five Star list for 2018 and later that year, it was named to Forbes inaugural Worlds Most Luxurious Hotels list. A Condé Nast Traveler article in May 2018 praised the restaurants and the service at the hotel. On February 20, 2019, Forbes Travel Guide renewed the Five Star rating for 2019. The hotel has also achieved the number 1 rating on TripAdvisor.com for all Washington hotels.</p><br>
<p>The Trump Organization initially entered into contracts with chefs José Andrés and Geoffrey Zakarian to open restaurants in the atrium and in the northwest corner of the Organization&#39;s planned new hotel. However, both chefs pulled out of the deals after Donald Trump made controversial public comments about Mexicans in June 2015, before the hotel had opened. The ensuing legal disputes were settled in April 2017.</p><br>
<p>For 16 years until 2015, the Sakura Matsuri-Japanese Street Festival, the largest Japanese Cultural Festival in the United States, took place throughout a spring-time day on Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the Old Post Office Building. The Festival&#39;s location enabled the event to be near the route of the annual Cherry Blossom Parade, which traveled nearby along Constitution Avenue during the same day (see National Cherry Blossom Festival).</p><br>
<p>However, in 2016 and 2017, the Street Festivals organizers were forced to move their event to a distant location in Washington. The Festivals relocation became necessary after the Trump Organization negotiated a deal with the Government of the District of Columbia that requires a 20 ft lane on Pennsylvania Avenue to remain open to the Trump International Hotels customers and valet parking service except during major events such as presidential inaugural parades, thus leaving insufficient space on the Avenue for the festivals activities and for those of other events formerly held near the building.</p><br>
<p>On the day before Trumps 2017 inauguration, Donald Trump and Michael Pence attended a "Leadership Luncheon" with his cabinet nominees and major donors at the Presidential Ballroom in the Trump International Hotel for which attendees paid $1 million. Ivanka Trump helped resolve disputes between the Inauguration Committee and the hotels staff.</p><br>
<p>After Donald J. Trump was inaugurated as President of the United States, the Trump International Hotel became the focus of legal controversy. World leaders stated Trump was encouraging visiting emissaries to stay at Trump hotels. Trump family members, such as Ivanka, profited from their stake in the hotel while Donald Trump was president.</p><br>
<p>After he left office, the House Oversight Committee continued to investigate, publicly revealing in October 2021 that the Trump International Hotel had received about $3.7 million from foreign governments, potentially violating the Foreign Emoluments Clause of the USA Constitution. Additionally, according to the congressional committee, the hotel had a net loss of over $70 million during Trumps presidency. To address this loss, another of Trumps companies, DJT Holdings LLC, loaned over $27 million to the hotel, only a small portion of which the hotel repaid. Most of the loan was eventually converted to capital contributions.</p><br>
<h4>=Emoluments Clause lawsuits=</h4><br>
<h4>==CREW v. Trump==</h4><br>
<p>In January 2017, a lawsuit against Trump was brought by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and several prominent legal scholars—including Laurence Tribe of Harvard Law School, former White House Special Counsel for Ethics and Government Reform Norman L. Eisen, Erwin Chemerinsky of the UC Irvine, and Zephyr Teachout of Fordham University. The lawsuit argues that Trump is in violation of the Foreign Emoluments Clause of the United States because his hotels, as well as other businesses, are accepting payments from foreign guests.</p><br>
<h4>==District of Columbia and Maryland v. Trump==</h4><br>
<p>On June 12, 2017, the Attorney General Karl Racine of the District of Columbia and Attorney General Brian Frosh of Maryland filed a joint lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland against President Trump alleging both foreign and domestic emoluments clause violations of the United States Constitution. Similar to CREW v. Trump, Attorneys General Racine and Frosh cite The Trump Organization receipt of foreign money at Trump Hotels and other businesses as a violation of the constitution, and that this transaction negatively affects the economy of D.C. and Maryland, as well as the best interests of the American public. In January 2021, the USA Supreme Court instructed the lower courts to dismiss the case as moot, because Trump was no longer president.</p><br>
<h4>==Blumenthal v. Trump==</h4><br>
<p>On June 14, 2017, led by Senator Richard Blumenthal and Representative John Conyers, Jr., more than a third of the voting members of Congress filed a lawsuit alleging violations of the Foreign Emoluments Clause seeking the right to be informed of and approve of gifts from foreign governments before they are received. The lawsuit makes specific allegations concerning attempts to solicit foreign governments at the Old Post Office building. In 2020, the USA Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia held that individual members of Congress lacked standing to bring action against the President where they sought declaratory and injunctive relief for alleged violations of the Foreign Emoluments Clause.</p><br>
<h4>==Trump response==</h4><br>
<p>President Donald Trump responded to the emolument clause allegations by outlining a plan where payments from foreign guests would be paid into the USA Treasury and to the GSA contract issues by placing his holdings into a trust directed by his children. This plan was criticized by Walter M. Shaub, the Director of the USA Office of Government Ethics, who stated that "the plan does not comport with the tradition of our Presidents over the past 40 years" and was at odds with past practice, since "...every President in modern times has taken the strong medicine of divestiture."</p><br>
<h4>=GSA contract=</h4><br>
<p>The Trump Organizations lease contract with the GSA, signed in 2013, provides that "no elected official of the government... shall be admitted to any share or part of this Lease, or to any benefit that may arise therefrom." In February 2017, Senators Tom Carper and Claire McCaskill (the Democratic ranking members of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and its Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, respectively) wrote a letter to the GSA inspector general, writing: "Since President Trump took the oath of office, the Trump Old Post Office, LLC appears to be in breach of the plain language of the lease agreement." They requested an inspector general inquiry. In March 2017 the GSA announced that they considered the tenant of the property to be in full compliance with the terms of the lease, following a reorganization of the hotels organizational structure and the placing of the property in a revocable trust.</p><br>
<p>On August 30, 2017, Bloomberg BNA reported that both the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the GSA Inspector Generals Office of Inspections had confirmed that they were evaluating GSAs management and administration of the lease. In January 2019, GSA General Counsel Jack St. John agreed with the single recommendation from Carol F. Ochoas 47-page report in which the Presidents business interest in the Trump International Hotel at the Old Post Office building might constitute a violation of the emoluments clause and this might cause a breach of the lease.</p><br>
<h4>=Political protests=</h4><br>
<p>During the presidency of Donald Trump, the Old Post Office became a frequent location of political protests. During the evening of May 15, 2017, artist Robin Bell projected messages onto the hotel&#39;s facade that stated, among other things, "Emoluments Welcome," along with an animation of the flags of nations in which Trump had business projects. On January 13, 2018, after Trump reportedly used the word "shithole" at a meeting, Bell projected onto the facade the message "Not a D.C. resident?" / "Need a place to stay?" / "Try our shithole". Following the March for Our Lives anti-gun violence rally on March 24, 2018, many rally-goers left their signs by the hotel.</p><br>
<h4>=Waldorf Astoria Washington DC=</h4><br>
<p>In 2021, the Trump Organization agreed to sell the lease on the building for $375 million to the investment firm CGI Merchant Group, which planned to rebrand the hotel as a Waldorf Astoria. The Trump Organization would profit $100 million from the deal.</p><br>
<p>In February 2022, the House Oversight Committee sought to prevent Trump from making the sale. The committee wrote to the GSA, arguing that Trump was suspected of having made "false or misleading information to the federal government" by giving GSA "at least one financial statement with possible material misrepresentations". The committee said Trump should not be "rewarded" for "seeking to profit off the presidency." GSA could have potentially prevented the sale of the lease by terminating the lease before the Trump Organization completed the sale.</p><br>
<p>The hotel closed on May 11, 2022, after its sale to CGI Merchant Group. The removal of the Trump signage on the building&#39;s facade drew extensive international media coverage.</p><br>
<p>The hotel reopened under its new name on June 1, 2022.</p><br>
<h4>==Foreclosure and Auction==</h4><br>
<p>On August 5, 2024 CGI Merchant Groups lender foreclosed on the leasehold, due to CGI defaulting on its loan. The lender, BDT & MSD Partners, auctioned the leasehold, but did not receive any bids. The lender submitted their own bid for $100 million, subsequently taking possession of the property. Hiltons contract to manage the property continued.</p><br>
<h2>Clock tower and bells</h2><br>
<p>The Old Post Office Buildings 315 ft clock tower is the third-highest building in Washington, after the Washington Monument and the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. The towers 270 ft observation deck offers panoramic views of the city and its surroundings. The tower includes an exhibit depicting the building&#39;s long struggle for survival and a view of the interior workings of the illuminated clock.</p><br>
<p>The Clock Tower houses the Bells of Congress (also known as the Ditchley Bells), which the Whitechapel Bell Foundry cast and are replicas of bells in Westminster Abbey. Sir David Wills, founder of the Ditchley Foundation, donated the bells to the United States in commemoration of the nation&#39;s 1976 Bicentennial. However, the bells were not brought to the United States and installed in the Clock Tower until 1983.</p><br>
<p>The 10-bell peal consists of bells ranging from 300 to 3000 lb and from 2 to 4.5 ft in diameter. Their composition is 78 percent copper and 22 percent tin. Each bell features the Great Seal of the United States, the Great Seal of the Realm, and an image of the flower London Pride in relief. Because the tower was not designed to hold bells, the architectural firm of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill and the structural engineering firm Cagley & Associates were hired to modify the tower so that it could accommodate the weight of the bells and the stress of their swings.</p><br>
<p>The Washington Ringing Society sounds the Bells of Congress every Thursday evening and on special occasions.</p><br>
<p>Prior to the 2014 renovation, National Park Service rangers provided tours of the Clock Tower.</p><br>
<p>The Federal Trade Commission Building, known historically as the Apex Building, is a federal building which serves as the headquarters of the Federal Trade Commission. Completed in 1938, the building was designated by Congress as a contributing structure to the Pennsylvania Avenue National Historic Site in 1966, and it was subsequently listed in the National Register of Historic Places.</p><br>
<h2>Building history</h2><br>
<p>Issues of antitrust legislation, tariff reduction, and tax reform dominated the 1912 presidential election, which culminated in the election of Woodrow Wilson as the twenty-eighth president of the United States. Honoring his campaign promises, Wilson signed the Federal Trade Commission Act in 1914. The following year, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) absorbed the duties of the Bureau of Corporations in the United States Department of Commerce. The FTC conducted investigations, published reports, and scrutinized industries such as meatpacking. It could challenge unfair competition and practices in trade and commerce.</p><br>
<p>The FTC occupied various sites in Washington, D.C. during its early years. The Public Buildings Act of 1926 authorized Congress to fund the Federal Triangle project, a large-scale initiative to develop a 70-acre site between the White House and the USA Capitol with federal buildings executed in classical styles of architecture. At the urging of the American Institute of Architects, the USA Treasury Department turned over principal design responsibilities to private architects. Edward H. Bennett of the Chicago firm Bennett, Parsons and Frost oversaw the project and designed the final building, which would become the headquarters for the FTC.</p><br>
<p>In 1937, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt laid the building cornerstone with the silver trowel that George Washington used to lay the cornerstone of the USA Capitol in 1793. In his speech, Roosevelt expressed hope that the "permanent home of the Federal Trade Commission stand for all time as a symbol of the purpose of the government to insist on a greater application of the golden rule to the conduct of corporation and business and enterprises in their relationship to the body politic."</p><br>
<p>Located at the eastern point of the Federal Triangle, it was originally called the Apex Building. Staff moved into the building on April 21, 1938. Over the years, the FTC&#39;s responsibilities expanded to include the enforcement of credit laws, oversight of the National Do Not Call Registry, and the development of policies concerning Internet fraud and privacy.</p><br>
<p>Loyalty Board reviews occurred in the Apex Building in 1948 concurrently with the first month of the Hiss-Chambers Case, as reported by the New York Times.</p><br>
<h2>Architecture</h2><br>
<p>The Federal Trade Commission Building is designed in the Classical Revival style of architecture. It is a refined style that conveys the dignity and stability of the federal government, which was particularly important during the Great Depression. The buildings within the Federal Triangle were designed according to principles of the City Beautiful movement, which espoused the use of formal arrangements, axial streets, and monumental, classical public buildings in city planning. Earlier in his career, the FTC Buildings architect, Edward H. Bennett, was an assistant to prominent architect and planner Daniel H. Burnham, a pioneer in city planning responsible for the layout of the 1893 Worlds Columbian Exposition in Chicago, as well as designs for Chicago and San Francisco. Burnhams influence is evident in Bennetts work on the FTC Building.</p><br>
<p>Bennett&#39;s design emphasizes the relationship between the building and its site. It is located on a triangular parcel of land bounded by Pennsylvania and Constitution avenues and Seventh Street, NW; the building has an essentially triangular footprint with a semicircular portico at one end. An interior courtyard provides natural light to interior offices. The building has undergone few changes since its construction.</p><br>
<p>The seven-story building sits on a simple base of Mount Airy granite. The walls above are clad in large, smooth blocks of Indiana limestone laid in a regular pattern. Bays on the midsection of each elevation are divided by pilasters (attached columns) or colonnades that form a loggia (open-air, arcaded space). The seventh story is slightly recessed. The portico is supported by Ionic columns. Aluminum window and door grilles accent the exterior. The low hipped roof is covered with red terra-cotta tiles.</p><br>
<p>The interior spaces are relatively restrained; only public spaces and hearing rooms are afforded a measure of distinction. Three lobbies on the first floor share similar features. Floors are covered with large, dark green terrazzo panels with black borders. Walls are clad in Neshobe gray marble with black marble on fluted pilasters, and plaster covers the ceiling and cornice. The FTC Building was one of the first federal buildings in Washington to have an integral air-conditioning system and a basement parking garage.</p><br>
<p>As part of the building plan, the Section of Painting and Sculpture oversaw the design and installation of several significant works of art. Two bas-relief medallions with eagles are located on the northwest corner elevation. Officials requested that the artist, Sidney Waugh, develop a fresh interpretation on the symbol, and the resulting design is highly stylized, relating well to the buildings other modern works. Large aluminum entrance grilles function as doors on the Constitution Avenue elevation. Images on the grilles, which were designed by William McVey, portray a continuum of commerce-related transportation methods. Depictions include Christopher Columbuss 14th-century ships, an 18th-century merchant ship, 19th-century clipper ship, paddlewheel steamship, early 20th-century ocean liner, and seaplane. Above the grilles are rectangular panels, each executed by a different artist, that represent foreign trade, agriculture, shipping, and industry.</p><br>
<p>Two nearly identical allegorical sculptural groups called Man Controlling Trade are located at the east ends of the two avenue elevations. Michael Lantz designed the sculptures in the Art Deco style. In each, a muscular man holds a straining stallion, symbolizing the enormity of trade and the government in its role as enforcer. The sculptures have become the agency&#39;s informal logo.</p><br>
<h2>Significant events</h2><br>
<p>1914: Federal Trade Commission established</p><br>
<p>1926: Public Buildings Act of 1926</p><br>
<p>1937: President Franklin Delano Roosevelt lays cornerstone</p><br>
<p>1938: Construction completed and building occupied</p><br>
<p>1966: Designated a contributing building within the Pennsylvania Avenue National Historic Site and listed in the National Register of Historic Places</p><br>
<h2>Building facts</h2><br>
<p>Location: 600 Pennsylvania Ave., NW</p><br>
<p>Architects: Bennett, Parsons and Frost</p><br>
<p>Construction Dates: 1937-1938</p><br>
<p>Architectural Style: Classical Revival</p><br>
<p>Landmark Status: Contributing building to the Pennsylvania Avenue National Historic Site</p><br>
<p>Primary Materials: Granite and Limestone</p><br>
<p>Prominent Features: Part of Federal Triangle development initiative; Colonnade; Man Controlling Trade sculptures</p><br>
<p>The United States Tax Court Building is a courthouse located at 400 Second Street, Northwest, Washington, D.C., in the Judiciary Square neighborhood.</p><br>
<p>It serves as the headquarters of the United States Tax Court.</p><br>
<p>Built in 1972, the building and its landscaped plaza occupy the entire block bound by D Street, E Street, Second Street, and Third street.</p><br>
<h2>Building history</h2><br>
<p>Government officials selected architect Victor A. Lundy to design the building in 1965. They awarded Lundy the contract without competition. The design follows the "Guiding Principles for Federal Architecture" issued by the Ad Hoc Committee on Federal Office Space at the request of President John F. Kennedy in 1962. In an attempt to improve federal buildings, the committee recommended architecture that would convey the "dignity, enterprise, vigor, and stability of the American Government". Designers and officials were encouraged to pay special attention to site selection and layout, including landscape development.</p><br>
<p>In the 1930s, the USA Board of Tax Appeals, later renamed the Tax Court of the United States, was housed in the Internal Revenue Service Building in the Federal Triangle. By 1956, overcrowding and the desire to separate judicial and executive powers led to initial attempts to relocate the court. In 1962, Secretary of the Treasury Douglas Dillon appealed to the USA General Services Administration (GSA) to incorporate funds for the design of a new building in its upcoming budget. GSA subsequently allocated $450,000.</p><br>
<p>In 1966, GSA approved Lundy&#39;s concept for a building with strong end masses, a central cantilevered courtroom block, and a landscaped plaza. Despite enthusiastic support for the project, the Vietnam War triggered funding cuts that delayed construction until 1972, when GSA secured a site and held a groundbreaking ceremony. The completed building was dedicated on November 22, 1974, the fiftieth anniversary of the Revenue Act that created the court. Employees occupied the building on January 20, 1975. Due to escalating construction costs, the plaza was not completed until 1981.</p><br>
<p>Lundy&#39;s design won a GSA Honor Award in the first Design Awards Program held in 1972.</p><br>
<h2>Architecture</h2><br>
<p>Describing the building, Lundy stated, "What Ive done is taken a monolithic block and broken it apart". The building displays the culmination of Modern design principles coupled with technological advances that allowed for a new type of building. Hailing the design in 1967, New York Times architectural critic Ada Louise Huxtable described the plans for the USA Tax Court Building as "a progressive, sensitive, contemporary solution fully responsive to Washingtons classical tradition and yet fully part of the mid-20th century - a period of exceptional vigor and beauty in the history of structure and design".</p><br>
<p>The building presents itself as a cube that has been deconstructed into four units: a dramatic cantilevered courtroom block on the front with office blocks on each side and to the rear. These four components surmount a single-story base called the podium. The building is clad in flame-treated Royal Pearl granite from Georgia and bronze-tinted, heat-absorbing, glare-reducing glass with slim bronze-anodized aluminum mullions. Lundy&#39;s use of materials and voids between blocks articulate the units.</p><br>
<p>Lundy employed state-of-the-art engineering technology to achieve his design. The buildings structure not only allowed Lundys design to be securely executed, but also is considered a significant engineering accomplishment. Compression and post-tensioned bridges, steel cables hidden within the buildings walls, and six slender columns together support the imposing 4,000-ton cantilevered courtroom block, which projects over the entrance. The compression and tension bridges also function as interior circulation bridges. In uniting the interior and exterior of the building, Lundy stated, "Inside this building, you will always have a sense of where you are and of the sky outside". The buildings exterior forms indicate the interior spatial arrangements.</p><br>
<p>The interior is defined by a four-story central public hall, also called the Hall of Justice, crowned by a clerestory roof that admits light into the space. Lundy created a hierarchy of interior spaces through his use of materials. The walls of the public hall consist of exposed, board-formed concrete and the exterior bronze-tinted glass curtain wall. The floor is covered with Royal Pearl granite pavers. The same granite also surfaces the original security desk in the center of the hall. The upper three stories of the hall consist of projecting cantilevered galleries that provide circulation for the upper stories. A screen of louvered teak strips extends from the second to fourth floors and allows natural light to filter into the spaces. The hall ceiling is covered in tongue-in-groove hemlock planks.</p><br>
<p>The courtroom block projects from the east wall of the public hall. On the third floor, a large ceremonial courtroom is flanked by two smaller courtrooms. A curved wall encloses the central courtroom, which contains a semi-circular judges&#39; bench. Courtrooms are finished in full-height teak veneer panels and strips. Hemlock grilles cover the ceilings.</p><br>
<p>Lundy designed the plaza, located on the Second Street side of the building, with a central reflecting pool flanked by landscaped areas. Interstate 395 runs directly beneath the plaza.</p><br>
<h2>Significant events</h2><br>
<p>1924: Revenue Act creates the United States Board of Tax Appeals</p><br>
<p>1966: Commission of Fine Arts approves Lundy&#39;s design</p><br>
<p>1972: Building receives GSA Honor Award in the First Biennial Design Awards Program</p><br>
<p>1972–1974: USA Tax Court Building constructed</p><br>
<p>1974: Building dedicated on 50th anniversary of the Revenue Act</p><br>
<p>1981: Landscaped plaza completed</p><br>
<h2>Building facts</h2><br>
<p>Location: 400 Second Street, NW</p><br>
<p>Architect: Victor A. Lundy</p><br>
<p>Construction Dates: 1972–1974</p><br>
<p>Architectural Style: Modern (Formalism)</p><br>
<p>Primary Materials: Granite and bronze-tinted glass</p><br>
<p>Prominent Features: Cantilevered courtroom block; Hall of Justice; Landscaped plaza</p><br>
<p>The Medina Armory is located on Pearl Street in Medina, New York, United States. It is a large stone building constructed at the beginning of the 20th century.</p><br>
<p>State architect George Heins designed it for what was at the time the 29th Separate Company of the New York Army National Guard. It was his first armory for the state. The 29th was later absorbed into other New York-based Guard and Reserve units. After closing in 1977, it is now the local YMCA. In 1995 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places along with other New York armories.</p><br>
<h2>Building</h2><br>
<p>The armory is located on a 1.1 acre lot that takes up the eastern half of the block formed by Lee Place, Pearl Street, and Prospect Avenue (NY 63) a few blocks northeast of downtown Medina. The surrounding properties are all residential, with the exception of a large former school building to the west on Catherine Street. The terrain is level.</p><br>
<p>The building itself is a two-story structure of Medina sandstone laid in a random ashlar pattern with a raised foundation. It consists of two sections: the main administration building, facing south to Prospect Street, and an attached drill shed on the north. A modern flat-roofed garage is attached to the northeast of the drill shed, projecting eastward. The southeast portion of the lot is given over to a large lawn with some planted shrubs surrounding the flagpole.</p><br>
<p>In the center of the south (front) facade of the administration building is the projecting entrance pavilion. On either side two engaged octagonal towers rise to crenelated parapets. The entrance itself is a recessed segmental-arched sally port with a pair of paneled oak doors below a tripartite transom. Stepped gabled ends project from the hipped roof shingled in asphalt with standing seam metal. The tall, narrow windows have iron grilles on the first story, matched in the rectangular basement windows.</p><br>
<p>On the side elevations of the nine-bay drill shed is paired narrow flat-arched windows set off by buttresses. Secondary entrances on both sides have four-paneled doors with similar transoms to the front entrance. The north (rear) has three groups of tall, narrow windows with buttresses.</p><br>
<p>Inside, most of the original finishings remain. The entrance hall has a large oak staircase, the company meeting room a tin ceiling. The walls have their original oak baseboard and plaster; many of the oak doors are original. Many rooms had been partitioned at the time of the armory&#39;s listing on the Register. The drill shed has exposed steel trusses, wainscoted ceilings, a balcony, and wooden floors.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Col. Hesikiah Bowen raised Bowens Rifles, the precursor unit to the 29th, in 1838 in response to the escalating tensions of the Aroostook War in Maine, which threatened to start a third war between the United States and Britain. Hostilities were avoided, and the unit was never deployed, but it survived for several years afterward. Later another unit, Linus Beechers Light Guards, replaced them although it was primarily a social organization. That unit eventually became the Pitts Light Guards.</p><br>
<p>In late 1891, the 29th was formally mustered under the command of Capt. A.S. Ross. Two other officers commanded 55 enlisted men. At first, they used the floors of a Main Street building, but soon the community began to agitate for the construction of an armory. Assemblyman Fred Downs lobbied the state government, and later in the decade, the project was approved. The 29th soon saw its first action during the Spanish–American War.</p><br>
<p>The present lot was acquired in 1899, and by September of that year the foundations were being dug. The state approved the completed building late in 1901, two years later. The land and construction together had cost $57,160 ($ in contemporary dollars).</p><br>
<p>It was the first of seven extant armories designed by George Heins, who had replaced Isaac Perry as New Yorks state architect. Like his predecessor, Heins used many features of medieval military architecture such as towers, crenelation, parapets, and sally ports, for an overall Gothic effect. His interpretations of those forms and details differ by being more modern and stylized than Perrys. A distinctive touch in Medina was the use of locally quarried Medina sandstone, at the time a highly popular material that was the county&#39;s major non-agricultural product.</p><br>
<p>Originally the armory had a flat roof. Renovations in 1912 gave it the current hip-gable combination. The following year the unit was called up to help suppress the streetcar strike in Buffalo. By then it would be known as Company F of the New York National Guard&#39;s Third Regiment.</p><br>
<p>In April 1917, the unit was deployed into World War I as part of the 27th Division, drawn entirely from the New York National Guard. A Buffalo unit was stationed in the armory in their absence as a home guard. In 1919, after the war, the unit became Company F of the 108th Infantry. During World War II, it was Company L of the 65th Regiment.</p><br>
<p>For the last three years of the Guard&#39;s use of the armory, the unit was Company C of the 174th Infantry. In 1977, the state announced it would be closed and its units moved to other locations. The Medina community formed the Armory Action Committee, not wanting to see the building become neglected. It worked to adapt the armory for local recreational use, partitioning the office space in the process. After 20 years, the Lake Plains YMCA bought the building from the state. was fully established in the building. It continues to operate, with over a thousand members and a wide range of programs.</p><br>
<p>The USA Customhouse is a historic custom house located in Savannah in Chatham County, Georgia. It was built to house offices of the United States Customs Service.</p><br>
<h2>Building history</h2><br>
<p>The USA Custom House symbolizes Savannahs importance to Georgias import-export trade during the 18th and 19th centuries. The site is also significant in Savannahs history. A wood-frame residence used by James Edward Oglethorpe, founder (in 1733) of the Colony of Georgia and designer of Savannahs town plan, was previously on the site. The federal courthouse and the Tabernacle, where John Wesley preached his first sermon in America, were located on the rear of this lot.</p><br>
<p>Savannah&#39;s first USA Custom House opened in 1789 on Commerce Row on East Bay Street. The second, opened in 1819 on East Bryan Street, burned in 1837. In 1845 the federal government purchased a site at East Bay and Bull Streets for a third USA Custom House. New York architect John S. Norris (1804–1876) served as designer and supervisor of construction. The building was the first of eighteen commissions Norris designed while living in Savannah from 1846 to 1861. The cornerstone was laid on July 20, 1848.</p><br>
<p>The building was completed in 1852 and had the USA Post Office in the basement, the Customs Service on the first floor, and the federal courts on the second floor. The notorious case involving the yacht Wanderer was tried here in 1860. It was the last documented violation of the law against the importation of slaves. USA control of the building temporarily halted in January 1861 when the Confederate flag was raised above it the day after the Georgia State Convention adopted the Ordinance of Secession. In 1864 General William T. Sherman occupied Savannah and returned control of the building to the Union. In 1889 Colonel John H. Deveaux worked in the building as the first African American USA Customs Collector.</p><br>
<p>The USA Custom House was designated as a contributing building in the Savannah National Historic Landmark District in 1966. It was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.</p><br>
<h2>Architecture</h2><br>
<p>Constructed entirely of stone, the USA Custom House in Savannah represents John Norris advocacy of fireproof construction, an interest fully supported by the city, which had experienced several devastating fires over its short history. Norris interest in fire protection was instrumental in changing the construction methods and physical appearance of buildings in Savannah through the use of materials such as brick and stone.</p><br>
<p>The USA Custom House opened in 1852, four years after construction began. On June 5, 1852 the Savannah Journal reported: "It must be said that if our Custom House was a long time growing, it has grown to be a perfect thing at last."</p><br>
<p>The monumental Greek Revival USA Custom House is sited at the corner of Bull and East Bay Streets. A distinctive cast-iron fence with balusters in the design of a closed tobacco leaf and fleur-de-lis surrounds the building. The building is eleven bays wide by five bays deep and constructed of 32-inch blocks of load-bearing, gray granite stones quarried in Quincy, Massachusetts. A pedimented portico supported by six monolithic columns dominates the main facade. These columns, estimated to weigh between 15 and 20 tons each, were freighted from Massachusetts lashed to the decks of ships. It reportedly took 30 days to transport the columns from the riverbank to the site and an additional 30 days to raise them into position. The fluted columns have capitals elaborately carved with a tobacco leaf motif. The striking granite stair provides access to the ceremonial public entrance. An unadorned entablature spans the building and the words "United States Custom House" are inscribed into the frieze of the pediment.</p><br>
<p>The focal point of the interior is the magnificent solid granite stair at the center of the first floor. It is constructed so that each step locks into the next without obvious perpendicular support. A massive granite octagonal column at the basement level provides the necessary structural support for the stair. The stair&#39;s distinctive cast-iron railing consists of balusters displaying the same closed tobacco leaf motif seen on the exterior and newel posts replicating the massive granite columns on the primary exterior elevation. A semi-circular rotunda encases the stairwell and original wood panel doors follow the curvature of the surrounding walls.</p><br>
<p>Still serving its original purpose with few changes over one hundred fifty years, the USA Custom House is a monument to Savannah&#39;s historic importance as a port city.</p><br>
<h2>Significant events</h2><br>
<p>1789: The first USA Custom House in Savannah opens in Commerce Row on East Bay Street.</p><br>
<p>1819: The second USA Custom House is built at East Bryan Street; the building is destroyed by fire in 1837.</p><br>
<p>1845: The federal government purchases a lot on the corner of East Bay and Bull Streets for the third USA Custom House.</p><br>
<p>1848–1852: The USA Custom House is constructed to house multiple federal agencies.</p><br>
<p>1860: The infamous case of the yacht "Wanderer," the last documented violation of the law against the transportation of slaves, is tried in the building.</p><br>
<p>1861: The Confederate flag is flown above the USA Custom House one day after adoption of the Ordinance of Secession by the Georgia State Convention.</p><br>
<p>1864: General William T. Sherman occupies Savannah securing federal property for the United States.</p><br>
<p>1966: The USA Custom House is designated as a contributing building in the Savannah National Historic Landmark District.</p><br>
<p>1974: The USA Custom House is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.</p><br>
<h2>Building facts</h2><br>
<p>Architect: John S. Norris</p><br>
<p>Construction Dates: 1848–1852</p><br>
<p>Landmark Status: Listed in the National Register of Historic Places</p><br>
<p>Contributing building in the Savannah National Historic Landmark District</p><br>
<p>Location: 1–3 East Bay Street</p><br>
<p>Architectural Style: Greek Revival</p><br>
<p>Primary Materials: Gray granite</p><br>
<p>Prominent Features: Portico interior staircase</p><br>
<p>The Tomochichi Federal Building and United States Court House is a court house of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Georgia located in Savannah, Georgia. It was built between 1894 and 1899, and substantially enlarged in 1932. The building was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1974 as Federal Building and USA Court House, and was renamed in honor of the Creek Indian leader Tomochichi in 2005.</p><br>
<h2>Building history</h2><br>
<p>The building is located on a prominent site within the city&#39;s National Historic Landmark District. The building occupies an entire city block on the western side of Wright Square, bounded by Bull, York, Whitaker, and State streets. The building makes an important visual contribution architecturally to the city due to the high quality of its design and materials, and as such is individually listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Designed in the Second Renaissance Revival style, with richly carved ornamentation, it is one of the most distinguished and imposing buildings of its era in Savannah.</p><br>
<p>The building was constructed primarily to house the Savannah post office, which was previously located in the USA Customs House. In 1889, work had just begun on a new post office at the corner of York and Abercorn Streets when construction was suspended because the citizens of Savannah wanted a "more suitable" building than the one originally planned. As a result, the USA Congress was persuaded to appropriate additional funds for the new post office, and in 1894, excavations began at a new site in the southern half of the block now entirely occupied by the building. This site itself was notable in Savannahs history as the former location of a courthouse where John Wesley, founder of Methodism, had preached in 1736 and 1737. The original building was designed between 1893 and 1894, during W. J. Edbrookes tenure as Supervising Architect of the Treasury. The building cornerstone lists Jeremiah O&#39;Rourke as the architect.</p><br>
<p>Originally designated as the USA Post Office and Court House, the structure was later renamed the Federal Building and USA Court House. By July 30, 1899, all departments of the post office were in the new government building. It also housed the USA Courts, the USA Engineers, and the USA Weather Bureau. The building was enlarged between 1930 and 1932 when it was extended north to encompass the remainder of the block. Today, the building serves as offices for the USA District Court and Court-related functions.</p><br>
<p>Updates on the building were funded in 2016; work started in 2021. The courthouse will be gutted and rebuilt to add room for additional offices. An inspection into the structural integrity of the building is planned.</p><br>
<h2>Architecture</h2><br>
<p>Designed in the Second Renaissance Revival style, the original portion of the building is constructed entirely of white Georgia marble and features the typical Italianate tripartite facade divisions characteristic of the style. The richly varied fenestration is one of the most prominent characteristics of the building. Various forms are skillfully used, resulting in distinct yet unified facade treatments.</p><br>
<p>The original portion of the Federal Building and USA Court House (visible on the York Street side and in the southernmost bay on Bull Street) is a richly ornamented, rectilinear building, to which an L-shaped wing was added in 1932 to form the current U-shaped plan. The main facade of the original building faced President Street. In the 1930s, President Street was closed and the building was extended north to State Street, enlarging it to over twice its original size. The 1932 addition was executed in marble with terra cotta ornamentation emulating the marble detailing of the original building.</p><br>
<p>The building is three stories in height, with a granite/ashlar foundation. On both the original building and the 1932 addition, scale is carefully manipulated as the building rises on the exterior-from the heavily rusticated base with massive semicircular arched openings, to the third floor where triple arched openings are used to give the appearance of a colonnade.</p><br>
<p>The buildings exterior ornamentation, both that executed in marble on the original portion of the building and the terra-cotta detailing on the extension is rich and varied. Motifs relating to nature—including flowers, animals, and fruit- are incorporated into the frieze (the carved band below the eaves) alternating with medallions of various colored marble. Similar motifs are repeated above certain windows and at the bases of the main entrance arches. Two carved faces (one on the north facade and one on the south) are traditionally said to be likenesses of the architect, Jeremiah ORourke.</p><br>
<p>Arched entrance openings, which occur singly, in pairs, or tangentially connected, on the street level of the building give the appearance of an arcade. On the second level, flat-topped windows are recessed in double-arched openings, continuing themes established on the street level. These arched openings are successfully mixed with flat-topped window openings. The third level displays an even more intricate composition of forms. Here, flat-topped windows recessed in triple-arched openings are combined with flat-topped windows topped with elaborately carved semicircular panels. These latter openings, which are hung singly and in triplicate, provide continuous visual unification of patterns and forms. The elaborate carvings over many of the openings are similar to the stylized motifs found elsewhere in the building. The walls terminate in a Corinthian entablature consisting of an elaborate frieze, dentil course, and bracketed cornice. The red pantile roof with tile cresting and ornamental ball finials was manufactured by the well-known Ludowici Roof Tile Company.</p><br>
<p>One particularly imposing feature of the building is a 150-foot marble bell tower rising from the north center of the original 1899 building. The tower is square in plan with two levels of open loggias near the top. These loggias are arcaded with colored marble disks above the architrave on the first level and arched openings with a bracketed balcony on the second.</p><br>
<p>Although the interior has been substantially renovated to accommodate various tenants through the years, original materials-including 1899 fireplace mantles in some rooms on the upper floors of the south wing are still evident in parts of the building. In other areas, later dropped ceilings have been removed, returning many rooms to their original height and exposing original window transoms. In the 1980s a new courtroom was constructed in the first-floor postal work area of the 1899 building. In 1995, the attic was converted to a fitness center with a cathedral ceiling. Recent USA General Service Administration preservation efforts include the restoration of the third-floor courtroom in the 1932 addition and the replication of historic lighting in the 1899 lobbies.</p><br>
<h2>Significant events</h2><br>
<p>1894–1899: Construction of the USA Post Office and Court House, later renamed the Federal Building and USA Court House, takes place.</p><br>
<p>1932: A major addition more than doubles the building&#39;s size.</p><br>
<p>1974: The building is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.</p><br>
<p>1992–93: The USA General Services Administration completes the restoration of the lobby, third-floor courtroom, and other spaces.</p><br>
<p>1999: USA Postal Service vacates the building.</p><br>
<p>2023: An upper floor of the courthouse collapses, injuring three or four construction workers</p><br>
<h2>Building facts</h2><br>
<p>Architect: Jeremiah O&#39;Rourke</p><br>
<p>Construction Dates: 1894–1899, Addition 1930–1932</p><br>
<p>Landmark Status: Listed in the National Register of Historic Places</p><br>
<p>Location: 125-127 Bull Street, on Wright Square</p><br>
<p>Architectural Style: Second Renaissance Revival</p><br>
<p>Primary Materials: White Georgia marble, terra cotta, and marble ornamentation</p><br>
<p>Prominent Feature: Marble bell tower and elaborate exterior ornamentation</p><br>
<h2>Attribution</h2><br>
<p>The William Augustus Bootle Federal Building and USA Courthouse, also and formerly known as Old USA Post Office and Federal Building, is a courthouse in Macon, Georgia of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Georgia. Completed in 1908, it initially served as a courthouse of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Georgia, until the creation of the Middle District in 1926. It was individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places  in 1972 as "Old USA Post Office and Federal Building", and also is included in the NRHP-listed Macon Historic District. It was renamed in honor of district court judge William Augustus Bootle in 1998.</p><br>
<h2>Building history</h2><br>
<p>In 1896, the rapidly growing city of Macon, Georgia, needed a larger post office and courthouse. After much debate, officials decided to construct a new building rather than expand an existing federal courthouse. However, Judge Emory Speer refused to vacate that building, insisting that only an addition was necessary and major construction would disrupt the court. Speer resisted for years, but the original building was finally demolished in 1906.</p><br>
<p>James Knox Taylor, Supervising Architect of the USA Treasury Department, designed the new building in the Beaux Arts Classicism style, which he believed conveyed the dignity of the Federal government. By September 1908, the building was completed. The post office occupied the first floor, and courtrooms and judges&#39; chambers were on the second floor.</p><br>
<p>The building was renamed the William Augustus Bootle Federal Building and USA Courthouse in 1998 to honor one of Georgia&#39;s most important judges who presided there. President Dwight Eisenhower appointed Judge Bootle to the USA District Court for the Middle District of Georgia in 1954. Judge Bootle was responsible for several landmark civil rights rulings in the state. In 1961, he ordered the University of Georgia to admit two African-American students, Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter, who were denied admission because of race. The case, Holmes v. Danner, had a major impact on integrating higher education in Georgia. Judge Bootle issued his ruling on Friday, January 6, 1961, and called for immediate action. Holmes and Hunter registered the following Monday and attended classes two days later. A related ruling by Judge Bootle denied Governor Ernest Vandiver the ability to refuse state funding to the university if it was integrated. Judge Bootle also ordered the desegregation of the Macon bus system in 1962 and Bibb County public schools in 1970. After a distinguished career, Judge Bootle died in early 2005.</p><br>
<p>The building was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1972 and is within the boundaries of the National Register of Historic Places Macon Historic District, which was listed in 1974.</p><br>
<h2>Architecture</h2><br>
<p>The building displays many characteristics of the Beaux Arts Classicism style of architecture. Architect James Knox Taylor was responsible for the construction of many classically inspired buildings during his Federal career. Taylor believed that classical architecture espoused the symbolic value of Federal buildings as lasting monuments to the ideals of democracy. The building contains many character-defining features such as the central pavilion with a pediment (triangular gable), monumental paired columns, balustrades, and decorative swags and garlands. The rusticated first story features deep horizontal grooves between the marble blocks.</p><br>
<p>The facade is clad in white marble on the front and side elevations, but cream-colored glazed brick is on the rear portion. The building sits on a raised granite base. Above the rusticated first floor, the marble is laid without recessed joints, resulting in a smooth finish. A dentil course of small blocks extends across the facade and is another classical feature.</p><br>
<p>Fenestration includes rectangular windows topped with marble pediments and arched windows with prominent keystones. Three large windows on the second story are each topped with fanlights. Plaques with swag designs are located above the keystones.</p><br>
<p>The original portion of the building had a U-shaped plan with an open light court that provided illumination to interior spaces. In 1917, a wing was added to the rear of the building. The addition respected the original design and used similar materials, but was less ornamental than the original facade. In 1934, a second addition was completed, providing another courtroom and more office space. Both were constructed under the auspices of the Supervising Architect&#39;s office.</p><br>
<p>The lobby is divided into two areas: a postal lobby in the original portion of the building and a public lobby that is part of the 1934 addition. In the postal lobby, verde (green) marble pilasters (attached columns) with scrolled Ionic capitals decorate the walls. The floors are terrazzo with brass dividers and verde marble borders. The same marble is used for the wainscot. Heavily veined white marble veneer covers the upper portions of the walls. The ornate ceiling is executed in plaster and features beams that divide the ceiling into distinct panels. Each panel is outlined with a dentil course and egg-and-dart decorative molding. A decorative band called a guilloche with floral patterns also defines each panel. The centers each have a plaster medallion outlined with an acanthus leaf design. Cylindrical brass light fixtures descend from the centers of the panels. Original octagonal postal tables that sit upon verde marble bases remain in the lobby. Decorative finishes and details in the public lobby are similar to those in the postal lobby and provide continuity to the interior. However, ceiling panels in the public lobby are less ornate.</p><br>
<p>The main staircase ascends from the first floor. Its newel posts and baluster are cast iron with a wood railing, and treads are white marble. Elevators have been replaced, but the exterior finishes are original and include doors with brass panels and verde marble surrounds.</p><br>
<p>The second floor contains the ceremonial courtroom. Oak wainscot covers the walls and an ornamental cornice encompasses the top of the room. Original furnishings in the room include the judges bench, witness box, clerks desk, court rail and benches, and jury box. Original lighting fixtures illuminate the powder-blue and white vaulted ceiling.</p><br>
<h2>Significant events</h2><br>
<p>Construction Dates: 1905–1908</p><br>
<p>1906: Old building demolished after lengthy delay</p><br>
<p>1908: New building completed</p><br>
<p>1917: First addition completed</p><br>
<p>1934: Second addition completed</p><br>
<p>1961–1970: Landmark civil rights rulings by Judge Bootle</p><br>
<p>1972: Building listed in the National Register of Historic Places</p><br>
<p>1974: Macon Historic District listed in the National Register of Historic Places</p><br>
<p>1998: Building renamed to honor Judge William Augustus Bootle</p><br>
<h2>Building facts</h2><br>
<p>Architectural style: Beaux Arts Classicism</p><br>
<p>Primary material: white marble</p><br>
<p>Prominent features: central pavilion with pediment first-floor lobbies; second-floor courtroom</p><br>
<p>The Elbert P. Tuttle USA Court of Appeals Building, also known as USA Post Office and Courthouse, is a historic Renaissance Revival style courthouse located in the Fairlie-Poplar district of Downtown Atlanta in Fulton County, Georgia. It is the courthouse for the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.</p><br>
<p>Its role as the first courthouse in which many key cases of the Civil Rights Movement were heard had it listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. It was listed as a contributing building in the Fairlie Poplar Historic District in 1984. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2015.</p><br>
<h2>Building history</h2><br>
<p>In the years following the American Civil War, Atlanta&#39;s population expanded rapidly. To meet increased demands for federal services, Congress approved funds for a new building containing both postal and courthouse functions. When ground was broken in 1907, workers discovered a natural rock formation that resembled an American eagle, which observers interpreted to mean that the federal building was destined for the site. James Knox Taylor, supervising architect of the USA Treasury Department, designed the building, which was completed in 1910 and deemed by the press to be "a great step forward in the scheme of beautifying Atlanta."</p><br>
<p>When the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals was established in 1981, it occupied the building, which was renamed in 1989 to honor Elbert Parr Tuttle (1897–1996), a renowned federal judge.</p><br>
<p>Many important cases have been argued in the courthouse. In 2000, the court upheld the USA Government&#39;s decision that Elian Gonzalez, a Cuban boy who was rescued off the Florida coast after his mother died during an attempt to enter the United States, should be returned to the custody of his father, in Cuba. The same year, several lawsuits involving the presidential election were decided. In Bush v. Gore, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the denial of a petition to stop manual recounts of ballots. The controversy eventually was decided by the Supreme Court.</p><br>
<h2>Architecture</h2><br>
<p>James Knox Taylor designed the Elbert P. Tuttle USA Court of Appeals Building in the Second Renaissance Revival style of architecture. The dignified style was commonly used for federal buildings during the early twentieth century.</p><br>
<p>The building occupies the block bounded by Forsyth, Fairlie, Poplar, and Walton streets in downtown Atlanta. It is five stories in height and has a U-shaped footprint with a central courtyard. The building is clad in granite on the street elevations, while the sides that enclose the courtyard are clad in buff-colored brick. The facade faces Forsyth Street. The first story is defined by smooth-faced rusticated granite and round-arched openings. Separating the first and second stories is a stringcourse with medallions and incised vertical designs topped with a wave pattern. Windows on the second level each have a classical balustrade, frieze with carved classical motifs, and molded cornice supported by scrolled brackets. The third and fourth stories are marked by large round-arched windows with scrolled keystones. These windows denote the interior location of the courtrooms. The arched windows are divided by classical pilasters (attached columns) and circular medallions. The top level has small rectangular windows separated by cartouches (decorative ovals). A heavy, ornate cornice with a dentil (rectangular block) course and carved anthemion motifs tops the building.</p><br>
<p>Other elevations contain a similar level of detail, although they lack the two-story arched windows. Windows on other elevations are topped with pediments containing cartouches or lintels with medallions or carved keystones. Some windows contain carved serpent-and-staff designs, which were associated with Mercury, the Roman messenger god who was an early symbol of the postal service in the United States. An iron arch spans a loading dock in the courtyard area on Fairlie Street.</p><br>
<p>Many original interior finishes and public spaces remain. The dominant feature of the first-floor lobby is its vaulted ceiling, which springs from a series of pilasters. At each end of the lobby are domed ceilings. Window and door frames and wainscot are marble, while upper wall surfaces are covered with plaster. Original arched, bronze casement windows remain in place. Beneath each window is an original wall-mounted marble letter table resting on cast-iron brackets. Floors were originally marble, but are now covered with green terrazzo panels trimmed with gray terrazzo. A mural by an unknown artist depicts a classical seated figure of Justice flanked by allegorical representations of Agriculture and Industry. A staircase with marble treads and wainscot and a cast-iron baluster with a swag pattern leads to upper floors.</p><br>
<p>The main courtrooms are the most significant spaces on the third floor. The most impressive is the two-story en banc courtroom that is designed for all of the appellate judges to meet to hear a case. Walls are covered with elaborately carved, stained oak paneling decorated with garlands, scrolled brackets, and molding. Large, round-arch windows are balanced with recessed arched bays on the opposite walls. Bronze grilles are located throughout. The maple floor is laid in a herringbone pattern and an elaborate coffered plaster ceiling with rosettes tops the room. Another appellate courtroom, although slightly smaller in scale, is equally impressive. Similar finishes are used on the walls and floor, and a gallery of oak benches provides seating for observers.</p><br>
<h2>Significant events</h2><br>
<p>1906-1910: USA Post Office constructed</p><br>
<p>1974: Building listed in the National Register of Historic Places</p><br>
<p>1981: USA Court of Appeals (Eleventh Circuit) established</p><br>
<p>1989: Building renamed to honor Judge Elbert Parr Tuttle</p><br>
<p>2000: Elian Gonzalez case and Bush v. Gore argued</p><br>
<p>2015: Building designated a National Historic Landmark</p><br>
<h2>Building facts</h2><br>
<p>Location: 56 Forsyth Street</p><br>
<p>Architect: James Knox Taylor</p><br>
<p>Construction Dates: 1906–1910</p><br>
<p>Architectural Style: Second Renaissance Revival</p><br>
<p>Landmark Status: Individually listed in the National Register of Historic Places and a contributing building within the Fairlie Poplar Historic District</p><br>
<p>Primary Material: Granite</p><br>
<p>Prominent Features: Ornate classical exterior; Vaulted lobby ceiling</p><br>
<p>The Woodruff House is located on NY 32 in Cornwall, New York, United States, a short distance south of the hamlet of Vails Gate. It is a small stone building dating to the early 19th century.</p><br>
<p>It is one of the few remaining stone houses from that period of the town&#39;s history. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996.</p><br>
<h2>Building</h2><br>
<p>The house is situated on a lot on the west side of Route 32, with a very short setback from the busy highway. Two large Norway spruce trees screen the front from the road. The surrounding area is mostly either open space or commercial, with some remaining residential property mixed in. To the west there are views of Schunemunk Mountain, Orange County&#39;s highest peak.</p><br>
<p>It is a one-and-a-half-story, three-bay structure, rectangular with a one-story frame addition on the west (rear) facade. The main block is sided in fieldstone. On all but the east (front) side it is not laid in any approximation of a pattern. On the east, there are large blocks approximating quoins on the corners and the stones are laid in an approximation of courses. It is topped by a flush gable roof, shingled in cedar shake with simple cornice pierced by two pent-roofed dormer windows and a single stone chimney.</p><br>
<p>The entrance is located in the northernmost of the three front bays. It has a small gabled portico also covered in shake. On the west, two identical dormers pierce the roof. The addition is sided in shake as well.</p><br>
<p>Behind a metal storm door is a wood paneled door. It leads to a side hall that opens on to living and dining rooms. They retain many original finishes, including wideboard flooring, hand-hewn ceiling beams, two fireplaces with Federal style mantels and marble surrounds, and both sawn and hand-hewn floor joists. In the cellar, an opening for the original Dutch oven is still visible. The rear wing houses a modern kitchen.</p><br>
<p>To the north is a clapboard-sided garage with a wood-shingled gabled roof. It is modern and not considered a contributing resource to the property&#39;s historic character.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The first mention of the house is an 1856 sale from Benjamin Woodruff to Patrick McGonigal. The house was built in 1790, according to Orange County, NY, tax records. At the time the highway that would become Route 32 was already present.</p><br>
<p>It is one of the few small houses, and one of the only stone houses, remaining in Cornwall from the late 18th century. The rear wing was added in the 20th century; otherwise no significant changes have been made. McGonigal left it to his widow, Roseanne, at his death in 1868 and it has remained a private residence since.</p><br>
<p>The North Main–Bank Streets Historic District is located along those streets in Albion, New York, United States. It is one of two historic districts in the village, comprising the commercial core of the village, developed during its years as a major stop on the Erie Canal. A portion of the canal, now the New York State Barge Canal, and two of its bridges are within the district.</p><br>
<p>Its buildings represent a diverse collection of architectural styles over a century of development. All but one are considered contributing properties to its historic character. They include an opera house and the village hall. It is one of the most intact commercial areas along the former canal. Many use locally quarried Medina sandstone or brick, a legacy of three destructive fires in the mid and late 19th century which destroyed earlier wood-frame buildings. In 1994, the area was recognized as a historic district and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>The district is an irregularly shaped area centered around the intersection of North Main (state highway NY 98) and East and West Bank streets. It slopes down gently toward the canal along its northern boundary. At its south end it borders on the Orleans County Courthouse Historic District, the other one in Albion. Its boundary follows lot lines and streets, including all the properties on the east of North Main north of Swan Library to the canal and bridge. At the northwest corner it includes the former Sears Carriage Factory at 125 Liberty Street, and a block of Beaver Alley.</p><br>
<p>It then includes the bridge and a portion of the canal, including a concrete prism and the former tow path, eastward to the Ingersoll Street bridge, after which it follows the south bank of the canal back west to the rear line of the Burrows Block at 131½ North Main, the only remnant of a whole row of buildings which fronted on the canal. Then it goes south and east around the village-owned parking lot to include all the buildings on the north side of East Bank Street to the village hall at the Platt Street corner. It excludes the parking lot across the street but then follows its property line south to zigzag across the block and include all the properties down to 35 North Main.</p><br>
<p>The 18 acre area within the boundary includes 43 buildings and three structures. Only one building, the modern commercial building at 18 North Main, is non-contributing. The rest are generally three-story brick or stone commercial buildings, with a few industrial buildings and houses, in a variety of 19th century styles. The area alternates dense development with open spaces for parking lots.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The development of the district can be divided into three periods: the early years from which only a few buildings remain, the middle years in which many of the current buildings were constructed after fires, and the later years in which the focus has been on preservation.</p><br>
<h3>1810s–1861: The early years</h3><br>
<p>Settlement of the future Albion area began in the early 1810s, picking up later in the decade when construction began on the Erie Canal. In 1822 large-scale development began when Nehemiah Ingersoll bought a large tract of land south of the canal on the east side of what later became Main Street. It was quickly subdivided, with a tavern and store built on Main Street, housing built along the canal route, and a dam and mill built on Sandy Creek, the nearby feeder stream.</p><br>
<p>In 1824 the canal section from Brockport to Lockport, including Albion, was completed and opened. Orleans County was created from the northern half of Genesee County, and the canal helped Albion get chosen over nearby Gaines as the county seat. When the canal was finished the next year, Albion became a bustling port, shipping mainly the wheat and apples grown in the surrounding farms. The brick Greek Revival Burrows Block at 131½ North Main, built in 1827, is the only one remaining from the canal frontage.</p><br>
<p>At the opposite end of the district, the presence of county government influenced development. As in the courthouse historic district, many of the surviving buildings from this period are residences. The oldest building in the district is the 1826 Federal style Porter Lee House at 30 North Main. Around 1830 the two oldest commercial properties, 105–107 North Main and the Goodrich-Proctor Block at 126 North Main, both brick Greek Revival structures, were built. Other residences and commercial buildings existed; most were wood frame and did not survive later fires.</p><br>
<p>In the late 1830s, a quarry operator near Medina, the next large settlement to the west along the canal, discovered an attractive reddish-brown sedimentary rock and began selling it as a building material. Medina sandstone, as it was called, would eventually be most heavily quarried around Albion, and shipped elsewhere in the state via the canal to be used later in the construction of the state capitol in Albany and many so-called brownstones in New York City. It saw its first use in the future district around 1840, when it was used to build the Sears Carriage Factory at 125 Liberty Street, one of the few surviving industrial buildings near the canal.</p><br>
<p>By the middle of the century, the trade in sandstone and farm products was making Albion prosperous. The canal was joined as a regional transportation artery by the Rochester, Lockport and Niagara Falls Railroad, locally known as the "Falls Road", soon absorbed into the New York Central, to the south. Two local businessmen, Lorenzo Burrows and Williams Swan, built large, ornate, Greek Revival houses for themselves at 34 and 48 North Main respectively. The current courthouse was built in 1858, providing another focal point to the village and a pole for development.</p><br>
<h3>1862–1897: Rebuilding</h3><br>
<p>Few buildings survive from this era. In 1862 the first of three fires in the district destroyed most of the south side of East Bank between Main and Platt. The Bordwell and Harrington blocks, 16–28 East Bank, replaced them along with the now-demolished Orleans Hotel. These new buildings were Italianate structures built of brick, the better to survive future fires.</p><br>
<p>Four years later, in 1866, the block of North Main just south of West Bank burned. It was replaced by the Blott, Royce and Empire blocks. At the north end of the rebuilt area was the Granite Block, partially constructed of Medina sandstone. Its design influenced that of neighboring buildings on West Bank built shortly afterwards, in the same style. Seven years later, in 1873, the village built a combination fire station and village hall at 35–37 East Bank, in the eastern corner of the future district. Its decorative facade combined brick and Medina sandstone.</p><br>
<p>The last fire, in 1882, burned the block of North Main between West Bank and Beaver Alley. The new buildings — the Granite and Day & Day blocks and the Pratt Opera House — were some of the district&#39;s most distinctive. They employed brick and Medina sandstone in various combinations of late Victorian styles: Italianate, Eastlake and Romanesque Revival. Atop the Day & Day and opera house pedimented parapets broke up the continuous flat skyline of that side of Main Street. The Daly and Hanley buildings, built at the north end of the block in 1897, continued this trend.</p><br>
<p>Albions prosperity continued into the 20th century. Few new buildings were built as the existing buildings remained in good shape. The Independent Order of Odd Fellows hall at 10 North Main, the districts south end, was put up in 1907. The Renaissance Revival bank building at 121 North Main was built in 1895 and further renovated in the 1920s. The last major building was the Strick Building at 31 East Bank, a sandstone commercial structure erected in 1923.</p><br>
<h3>1898–1994: Buildout and decline</h3><br>
<p>During this period the economy began to decline slightly. Improvements in railroad technology had made them more efficient than the canals, so the state responded by combining the Erie and several other canals into the New York State Barge Canal system. The canal was rerouted entirely in some areas, but in Albion it was merely widened and dredged. The two lift bridges in the district were built during this period, which ended around 1930.</p><br>
<p>The improvements to the canal sufficed for only a few more years. Demand for Medina sandstone had been declining in the face of competition from Portland cement, and it was desired only for curbstones. In the late 1940s, that ceased as most easily accessible beds of the material had been exhausted. Albion also suffered when the New York State Thruway was opened to the south, near Batavia, displacing both canal and rail as a freight route.</p><br>
<p>Businesses closed down, but the buildings they were in were not demolished. The listing of the courthouse historic district to the south gave impetus to efforts to preserve and restore the commercial area as well. The district was determined eligible for the National Register in 1986; that was changed when the north side of East Bank between Platt and Ingersoll, originally intended to be included, was found to have too many alterations and modern intrusions to retain its historic integrity.</p><br>
<h3>1995–present: Preservation battles</h3><br>
<p>Citizens formed the Albion Main Street Alliance (AMSA) to work to revitalize Albion&#39;s downtown, in particular the district. They advocated for a fouRr-point approach used in similar communities across the country: organization, promotion, design and economic restructuring. Specific projects undertaken include beautification such as placing American flags on the street and litter cleanup in Canal Park, taking photographic inventory and mapping the buildings within the district, and organizing community events and education programs related to it. It has been accredited by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which gave the village a three-year grant to restore facades in 2008.</p><br>
<p>The HPC clashed with the villages mayor, Mike Hadick, over its denial that year of a sign permit. Commission members felt that a sign Verizon wanted to use on its Main Street store was inappropriate for an area with buildings over a century old, and that it probably had less intrusive signs available to it. Hadick felt that the commission, which he felt had also been insufficiently supportive when the village tried to restore the rear wall of its visitors center at 121 Main Street, was creating unnecessary obstacles for businesses in a difficult economy. He later granted the permit himself, which the HPC said was beyond his authority. Late in the year he asked four of the seven members to step down since they had not taken their oaths of office within the required 30 days, leaving the commission without a quorum and unable to take action. He said he would take applications from the community for new members instead of reappointing the four, who said they had never been told of the need to take the oath. At a village board meeting early in 2009, Hadick responded to a presentation about the benefits of the historic district by saying he would prefer the demolition of most of the historic properties along Main Street in favor of new ones, claiming that the "outdated" buildings drove young adults from the village. Members of AMSA and the HPC were critical of his attitude and actions.</p><br>
<p>In the spring, AMSA organized the Olde Orleans Erie Canal Festival to promote the district as part of a corridor of historic and scenic attractions along Route 98, ranging from the nearby courthouse to the Cobblestone National Historic Landmark District and Oak Orchard Lighthouse Museum north of town along the highway. The event included historic re-enactments and building tours. Local artists and organizations exhibited in the Pratt Building, as well.</p><br>
<p>A month later, Hadick resigned as mayor and Dean Theodorakos, one of the HPC members and a village trustee, was chosen by the board to replace him. Theodorakos moved later that year to have the village apply for Certified Local Government (CLG) status from the National Park Service in order to better protect the historic district. Julian Adams, coordinator of the CLG program for the State Historic Preservation Office, said Albion was an ideal community for the program. "I was blown away by your downtown," he told a meeting of village officials and interested citizens. "You have wonderful buildings here that no one else has", due to the lack of any urban renewal efforts in the village.</p><br>
<p>In 2010, the commission had to start its work over again when it discovered that the historic district had never been formally established under local law. Almost ten years earlier, public hearings required by law had been held, but the resulting documentation was never filed with the county clerk&#39;s office and could not be located in village archives. That gave the commission an opportunity to consider expanding the district recognized in the village code to include properties outside the Register district, such as residences on some of the side streets and property north of the canal.</p><br>
<h2>Significant contributing properties</h2><br>
<p>All but one property (18 North Main Street) are considered contributing to the district&#39;s historic character. None are as yet individually listed on the National Register.</p><br>
<p>Burrows Block, 123–131½ North Main Street. The oldest section of this brick Greek Revival building, constructed in several stages in the 1830s, is the only remaining canalside commercial building.</p><br>
<p>Lorenzo Burrows House, 48 North Main. One of the two large Greek Revival houses in the district, dating to 1840.</p><br>
<p>Citizen&#39;s Bank Building, 121 North Main. The only Renaissance Revival building in the district was finished in 1895 and redone in the 1920s.</p><br>
<p>Granite Block, 52–60 North Main. This Italianate building of Medina sandstone laid in a random ashlar pattern after the 1866 fire influenced several others around it.</p><br>
<p>Lee Porter House, 30 North Main Street. This 1826 brick Federal style house, later given some Italianate touches, is the oldest in the district.</p><br>
<p>Pratt Opera House, 120 North Main. A three-story Romanesque Revival 1882 building, its third-story pedimented cross-gable and roof accommodate an intact theater.</p><br>
<p>Sears Carriage Factory, 125 Liberty Street. A small, utilitarian brick building dating to 1840 and expanded twice since then, this is one of the few remaining industrial buildings near the canal on the south side.</p><br>
<p>W.G. Swan House, 34 North Main. This is the other large 1840s brick Greek Revival house built by an early canal businessman.</p><br>
<p>Village Hall and firehouse, 35–37 East Bank Street. An ornate structure dating to 1873 that continues to serve in both capacities.</p><br>
<p>The Orleans County Courthouse Historic District is one of two located in downtown Albion, New York, United States. Centered on Courthouse Square, it includes many significant buildings in the village, such as its post office and churches from seven different denominations, one of which is the tallest structure in the county. Many buildings are the work of local architect William V.N. Barlow, with contributions from Solon Spencer Beman and Andrew Jackson Warner. They run the range of architectural styles from the era in which the district developed, from Federal to Colonial Revival.</p><br>
<p>Most of its buildings date to the 19th century, with some erected in the early 20th, a period when Albion was prospering not only as the county seat but as a stop on the Erie Canal, which passes through the village a short distance north of the district. A number of the buildings, including the county courthouse, use locally quarried Medina sandstone. In 1979 it was recognized as a historic district and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>The district is square-shaped with two protrusions on its northeast and southwest corners. Its boundaries follow lot lines. The entire Courthouse Square is included, and all the properties facing it on South Main (state highway NY 98), East State, South Platt and East Park Streets. On the southwest it continues along West Park to include all corners of the Liberty Street intersection, and likewise it continues along East State Street east of Platt to include all properties as far as Ingersoll Street.</p><br>
<p>This roughly 15 acre area includes 35 buildings, all but two of which are considered contributing properties to the districts overall historic character, built between 1830 and 1910 in various contemporary architectural styles. It is a densely developed urban core, on land sloping gently to the north. Albions other downtown historic district, the more commercially oriented North Main-Bank Street area, borders on the north and extends to the canal, now part of the New York State Barge Canal system.</p><br>
<p>Many of the buildings along South Main, the principal vehicular route through the district, are massed, bulky structures of stone or brick. The districts original focal point, the metallic dome of the Greek Revival county courthouse, is set off by a similarly large county clerks building of later construction to its south and the modern, non-contributing county jail to the southeast. Around the courthouse buildings is the only open space in the district, planted in mature tall trees on the west (front) of the courthouse and taken up with a parking lot to the south.</p><br>
<p>The neighboring streets complement the courthouse complex with large institutional buildings like the village&#39;s Swan Library and the seven churches. The 175 ft spire of the Old English Gothic First Presbyterian Church to the north is a focal point for the region — as the tallest structure in Orleans County, it can be seen from 10 miles (16 km) away on clear days. On the far corners, the larger buildings give way to smaller buildings and houses.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The district&#39;s active development can be split into two phases: the years from the creation of Orleans County to the construction of the new courthouse, when development was mostly residential and slower-paced; and the years after the current courthouse was built, when larger scale buildings were constructed at a faster rate. During the 20th century some renovations were made, and only two new buildings were added.</p><br>
<h3>1824–1858: Before the courthouse</h3><br>
<p>When Orleans County was split from Genesee County to the south in 1824, a group of state commissioners visited the new county to choose the seat. At the time the choice was between Albion and Gaines to the northwest, then the two largest settlements in the county and relatively centrally located within it. The commissioners were impressed when Nehemiah Ingersoll, one of Albion&#39;s more prominent citizens, took them on a tour which showed its access to water power.</p><br>
<p>The next year the Erie Canal was opened, putting Albion on a major trade route across the state, giving local farmers access to distant markets. On the remains of a former glacial drumlin, a log cabin had been built in 1811 by William McAllister, one of the first buildings in what would become Albion. The area around it began to develop. Two churches were built across the square, the First Presbyterian Church on South Main in 1830 (currently Christ Episcopal Church) and the First United Methodist Church at East State and Platt. The Mahaney and Bullock houses, on South Main and Liberty respectively, were built around this time. The former, a three-bay Federal style structure with elliptical arched entrance and saddleback roof, is typical of the application of the style around Western New York at that time. The latter, later home to Reconstruction-era Georgia Governor Rufus Brown Bullock, is possibly the oldest building in the district. Its recessed panels beneath the first floors arches recall Charles Bulfinchs influential Second Harrison Gray Otis House in Boston.</p><br>
<p>In 1840 a large brick residence at the corner of Main and State streets was built in the Greek Revival style for Alexis Ward, the first president of the Village of Albion. The First Presbyterian Churchs second building, now its chapel, demonstrates how it was applied locally. Other than the cast iron leaves of the front columns Corinthian capitals, its brick exterior is devoid of ornament. Similarly the interior is decorated only with a plaster ceiling medallion. This austerity may reflect both the conservative tastes of the congregation at that time and their possibly limited construction budget.</p><br>
<p>The house of Sanford E. Church, later lieutenant governor and chief judge of the Court of Appeals, New Yorks highest court, also added Greek Revival elements to a Federal design. Located at East State and Ingersoll, it is the most prominent residence in the district. Its Doric colonnade acknowledges changing trends, but their slenderness along with the houses elliptical fanlight and clapboard siding suggests that its builder was not yet ready to fully embrace them.</p><br>
<p>A few years earlier, quarries near the village of Medina to the west had found a reddish-brown local variety of sandstone. Soon quarries near Albion began producing it as well, and it became a major local industry, producing much of what was called brownstone when used in New York City, as well as all the steps of Henry Hobson Richardson&#39;s "Million Dollar Staircase" in the state capitol.</p><br>
<p>It would take a while to be used for Albion&#39;s downtown other than curbs, steps or window trim. In the meantime, the Italianate style quietly debuted in Albion with the Porter House at 33 Platt Street in 1855. Five years earlier the Preston House at 118 East State Street had been built in a consciously Colonial style.</p><br>
<h3>1858–89: The courthouse and after</h3><br>
<p>In the late 1850s the county was beginning to outgrow its original courthouse. A committee of the county&#39;s board of supervisors that traveled to Lyons, the Wayne County seat, was impressed enough with the courthouse there that the board decided it should be the model for their new one. For the design, they chose William V.N. Barlow, a young local architect for whom the courthouse would be his signature building</p><br>
<p>His courthouse building, completed in 1858, was an ornate Greek Revival structure with a tall, gilded dome 36 ft wide like its model. Its embrace of the style contrasted with the more restrained use of it on older buildings nearby like the Presbyterian chapel and Church House.</p><br>
<p>Two years later, the First Baptist Church on West Park Street matched the scale of the new courthouse with a structure combining Gothic (steep buttresses and a tall hexagonal tower rising from the center of the front facade) and Romanesque elements (round arched windows and corbel tables). Also built that year was the first house of worship in the Free Methodist Church, started by abolitionists, on East State Street. It too combined the styles, with Romanesque proportions and Carpenter Gothic design touches. The buildings vertical battens are topped with unmolded block capitals, suggesting the buildings unknown architect was considerably refined in the use of the style.</p><br>
<p>After the Civil War the village prospered. Since 1853, when the New York Central Railroad had absorbed the Rochester, Lockport and Niagara Falls Railroad, which ran through the village paralleling the canal to the south, its agricultural products and sandstone had been shipped to many distant markets. Growth in the district continued apace. The Methodists built an Italianate parsonage on Platt Street in 1865, and during the 1870s Barlow and others built new houses, introducing styles like the Second Empire and its mansard roof on the 1879 White-Martilotta House at 134 East State Street, the largest home built in the district since Churchs. Barlow also built the Italian villa-style brick home for local merchant William Gere on the southwest corner of West Park and South Main, which now serves as the rectory for St. Josephs Church.</p><br>
<p>When local banker and politician Elizur Hart died in 1870, he left $50,000 (approximately $950,000 in contemporary dollars) for the construction of a new First Presbyterian Church. He specifically stipulated that the new church&#39;s spire be taller than the one on the Baptist church.</p><br>
<p>Andrew Jackson Warner was commissioned to design the new church. He delivered the current building, made entirely of rusticated stone, which he had become familiar with while working on Henry Hobson Richardson&#39;s Buffalo State Hospital earlier in his career. The English Gothic style chosen was also well-adapted to the material, since the 13th-century churches used as models were usually made of local stone. Some aspects of the design, such as the placement of the tower, the rose window and the placement of the details, suggest the influence of Richard Upjohn, whose 1859 Third Presbyterian Church in Rochester Warner would also have been familiar with. The spire, when finished the following year, reached 175 ft, making it the tallest structure not only in the village but the county. A manse squarely in the Colonial Revival style was also built that year.</p><br>
<p>In 1885, Barlow introduced two new styles to Albion. The Warner House at 21 East Park is the villages first Queen Anne, and just down the street at 34 East Park he brought the Eastlake style, where the decoration is made of the same material as the surface it is on, to Albion. Three years later, it got a higher-profile placement with the Surrogates Building just south of the courthouse. Rochester architect Harvey Ellis dotted the faces of the building, made entirely of fireproof materials, with inventive brickwork. "From that point on", wrote a critic decades later, "his genius as a practitioner of the true fine art of building begins to sing".</p><br>
<p>Yet another emerging style, Colonial Revival was brought to the district at the end of the decade by Barlow. In 1889 he oversaw the renovation of the 50-year-old residence at Main and State into the Swan Library. Most of the exterior was redecorated for the new style. Inside, its original Greek Revival woodwork remains intact except for a large reading room redone in Colonial Revival.</p><br>
<h3>1890s: Two churches</h3><br>
<p>The 1890s saw two of the district&#39;s churches, among them one of its most distinctive, built through the generosity of local benefactors. All used Medina sandstone, reflecting the prosperity of the region at the time.</p><br>
<p>The next year George Pullman, the railroad-car entrepreneur who had lived in Albion as a young cabinetmaker during the late 1840s and into the 1850s, agreed to build a Universalist church in the village (named Pullman Memorial Universalist Church). He commissioned Solon Spencer Beman, who had designed his company town outside Chicago. Beman saw that the Medina sandstone was particularly well-suited to the Richardsonian Romanesque style, and produced a compact church of rough-hewn blocks of that material, with unmolded window trim revealing the thickness of the face. While it uses pointed arches instead of the round ones Richardson preferred, the tower evokes the older architects Trinity Church in Boston. The interior echoes Richardson as well in contrasting the exteriors heaviness and seriousness with space and bright color, including the Tiffany stained glass window and golden oak ceiling beams.</p><br>
<p>The last of the two churches of the 1890s was a spite building. William Stafford, a member of the Baptist Church and Orleans County District Attorney, ran for reelection and lost. He felt his loss was partly due to his fellow congregants failure to sufficiently support him. He sold the land he owned next to the Baptist Church to St. Joseph&#39;s Roman Catholic Church, which was outgrowing its current location on Main Street north of the Erie Canal. According to local legend, the property was sold under the condition that a new church on the property be built close enough to West Park Street to block the view of the Baptist church from Main Street. The Gothic Revival building, designed by an unknown architect, is smaller in scale and less decorated than the other churches, but does block the view to the Baptist Church from Main Street.</p><br>
<h3>1900–present: Decline and preservation</h3><br>
<p>A few more buildings were added to the district in the early 20th century, and some others were renovated. A tower with the board-and-batten siding was added to the Free Methodist Church in 1900, and St. Joseph&#39;s built a school in 1913. Later that year the Pullman church built a parsonage of its own. Its Colonial Revival design, featuring a delicate half-ellipse, evoked the very same Federal and Greek Revival buildings that had been built in the nearby blocks when the area was first developed.</p><br>
<p>The industries that made Albion prosperous started to decline after that decade. The canal was enlarged and made part of the New York State Barge Canal system in 1918, which failed to stop the loss of traffic to railroads that were growing ever more efficient. By the 1920s Portland cement had become common and cheap enough that the sandstone quarries were losing customers. The courthouse was renovated in the late 1920s. Late in the Depression, in 1937, a new post office in the Colonial Revival style was built opposite the courthouse and library, with two Greek Revival homes that had been there demolished in the process. Note: This includes</p><br>
<p>Swan Library itself was redecorated in 1952, only to have the original color scheme restored in 1975. Shortly before that the modernist new county jail had been built, the most recent construction in the district. An interest in preserving the village&#39;s downtown culminated in the 1979 listing on the Register.</p><br>
<h2>Significant contributing properties</h2><br>
<p>None of the districts 33 contributing properties is currently independently listed on the National Register. The post office, within the district, was listed after the district, but is not considered to be contributing to the district because it was built after 1910, the end of the districts period of significance.</p><br>
<p>Rufus Brown Bullock House, 36 Liberty Street. The future governor of Georgia lived in an 1830 house typical of Federal style homes in the region.</p><br>
<p>Sanford E. Church House, 4 Ingersoll Street. A large Federal style home built around 1840 with some Greek Revival decoration, it was the largest early home in the district.</p><br>
<p>First Presbyterian Church, 29 East State Street. Andrew Jackson Warner&#39;s 1875 building with its tall spire is the largest church in the district.</p><br>
<p>Free Methodist Church, East State Street. The Mother Church of the Free Methodists is an 1850s Carpenter Gothic-style building.</p><br>
<p>Orleans County Courthouse, Courthouse Square. William Barlow&#39;s 1858 Greek Revival centerpiece to the district is considered his most important building.</p><br>
<p>Pullman Memorial Universalist Church, South Main and East Park streets. Solon Spencer Beman&#39;s 1894 stone church, endowed by his patron George M. Pullman, has been described as the finest in the village Pullman once called home.</p><br>
<p>Surrogates Building, Courthouse Square. Harvey Elliss 1888 structure brought the Eastlake style to center stage in Albion.</p><br>
<p>Swan Building (Roswell Smith Burrows Mansion), 4 North Main Street. Barlow oversaw this 1840 houses conversion into Albions first public library.</p><br>
<p>White-Marilotta House, 134 East State Street. Barlows 1879 commission for Judge John Hull White marked the Second Empires debut in the village.</p><br>
<p>The Federal Building, USA Post Office and Courthouse in Hilo, Hawaii is a former courthouse of the United States District Court for the District of Hawaii. Completed in 1917 and expanded in the 1930s, the building was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.</p><br>
<h2>Building history</h2><br>
<p>Prior to the annexation of the islands by the United States in 1898, Hilo was a thriving educational and commercial center on Hawaii, the largest of the Hawaiian Islands. Flourishing agricultural enterprises were served by railroads and harbors that facilitated trade with both the continental United States and East Asia. Postal services in Hilo commenced in 1858. When the Hawaiian Islands became a territory of the United States in 1900, officials wanted to expand postal and court facilities for the second-largest city in the territory. By 1913, the Hilo Board of Trade and the territory&#39;s governmental representative secured US$200,000 for a federal building.</p><br>
<p>New York architect Henry Whitfield designed the new building in 1915. Whitfield, who was the brother-in-law of Andrew Carnegie, had just completed the design for the Honolulu Carnegie Library. Whitfield designed the building in the Mediterranean Renaissance Revival style, which blends traditional classical architecture with features more suited to a tropical climate. The building was one of the first in Hawaii constructed using reinforced concrete, a technology that was common on the mainland. Construction was completed and the building occupied in 1917. It originally functioned as a courthouse, post office, and custom house. Other tenants included the Immigration Bureau, Agricultural Extension Service, Weather Bureau, and Internal Revenue Service.</p><br>
<p>By the 1930s, tenants required more space and two wings were added to the building between 1936 and 1938. Louis A. Simon, supervising architect of the US Treasury, designed the wings in a style compatible with that of the original building.</p><br>
<p>The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places listings on the island of Hawaii on October 1, 1974 as site 74000708. In 1978, most postal functions moved to a new location, and the following year the Third Circuit Court vacated the third floor, which was converted into offices.</p><br>
<p>The structure is located on the northern edge of downtown bounded by Waianuenue Avenue, Wailuku Drive, and Kinoole and Kekaulike streets at 154 Waianuenue Avenue (Route 200), 19&deg;43&prime;32&Prime;N latitude, 155&deg;5&prime;20&Prime;W longitude, on Kalakaua Park square. Across the square is the historic former District Courthouse and Police Station.</p><br>
<h2>Architecture</h2><br>
<p>Whitfield&#39;s design blends classically inspired forms and motifs with features that are suitable for the warm Hawaiian climate. It is particularly noteworthy for its use of reinforced concrete, and it is one of the earliest buildings in the area to be constructed of permanent materials.</p><br>
<p>The reinforced concrete building is covered with painted stucco. The original building was rectangular, and the wing additions extend forward from the facade to form a U-shape. The facade is organized around a central courtyard. The building is three stories in height with a penthouse. Open-air loggias divided into three distinct levels face the courtyard and provide occupants with pleasant views and circulating air currents. The loggias also function as exterior corridors and provide primary circulation for occupants. One of the building&#39;s most appealing features is a two-story colonnade supported by monumental Tuscan columns. The colonnade faces the courtyard and supports the loggia on the first and second stories, while simple, square piers support the third-level loggia. Wrought-iron balusters are located on the first and second floors on portions of the colonnade. Decorative elements within the courtyard, including colorful mosaic tiles and urns, emphasize the Mediterranean Renaissance Revival style of the building, which blends classical and exotic motifs. Wrought-iron light fixtures are located on the building, and a wrought-iron grille with a gilded eagle tops the entrance to the postal lobby.</p><br>
<p>The exterior is divided into horizontal zones by water tables and stringcourses, a feature common to Renaissance Revival architecture. Classically inspired limestone surrounds highlight prominent features, such as windows and entrances, on the wings. Another colonnade (now enclosed with operable windows) is located on the rear. The penthouse contains a clerestory band of windows, that admits light into the third story. Five skylights, including one on the penthouse roof, illuminate the interior. The roof is covered with green glazed tiles.</p><br>
<p>The majority of interior spaces open onto the loggias, which provide necessary air circulation. The original postal service spaces on the first level contain gray-veined, white marble floors. Walls and ceilings are covered with painted plaster. Changes to the interior integrated new technology and accommodated changing uses of the building. Elevators have been added over time, including the island&#39;s first passenger elevator in 1950. After the courts vacated the building in 1978, the courtroom was transformed into office space. Total floor area is 50,346 ft2.</p><br>
<p>Although landscaping was designed as part of initial construction, much of the plan was not executed until the wings were built. The grounds are lushly planted with numerous native plants with retaining walls of indigenous lava stone. On Memorial Day in 1922, the American Legion planted 17 royal palms along Kekaulike Street to commemorate Hawaiian citizens who died in World War I.</p><br>
<h2>Significant events</h2><br>
<p>1898: United States annexes Hawaii</p><br>
<p>1915-1917: Federal Building, USA Post Office and Courthouse constructed</p><br>
<p>1936-1938: Three-story wings constructed</p><br>
<p>1974: Building listed in the National Register of Historic Places</p><br>
<p>1978: Main post office vacates building</p><br>
<p>1979: Third Circuit Court vacates building</p><br>
<p>The Birch Bayh Federal Building and USA Courthouse, formerly known as the USA Courthouse and Post Office and as the Federal Building, is a courthouse of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, located in Indianapolis. It is a distinguished example of Beaux-Arts architecture, and was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. Constructed from 1902 to 1905, the United States District Court for the District of Indiana met here until it was subdivided in 1928; the United States Circuit Court for the District of Indiana met here until that court was abolished in 1912. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as "USA Courthouse and Post Office" in 1974. The courthouse was renamed in honor of Senator Birch Bayh in 2003.</p><br>
<h2>Building history</h2><br>
<p>The building was one of only 35 federal buildings constructed under the Tarsney Act of 1893. The United States Treasury Department sought designs for the new federal building from private architectural firms through an open competition allowed under the Act. John Hall Rankin and Thomas Kellogg, noted Philadelphia architects, secured the design contract, and the Treasury Department accepted the New York-based John Pierce Company&#39;s low construction bid of $1,300,000. (The final cost, however, reached nearly $2,000,000.) Begun in 1902 and completed in 1905, the new federal building was massive. Accommodating 925 federal employees, the U-shaped Beaux-Arts structure occupied an entire block, rose four stories, and housed federal courts, offices, and the main post office.</p><br>
<p>Beaux-Arts classicism, often reflected in federal buildings of this era, was popularized by the majestic buildings of the Chicago World&#39;s Fair in 1893. Monumental design and formal planning of spaces are hallmarks of the style. The Federal Building and USA Courthouse inspired Beaux-Arts designs for other public buildings in Indianapolis, including Indianapolis City Hall (1910), the Indianapolis Public Library (1917), and buildings in the Indiana World War Memorial Plaza (dedicated in 1927).</p><br>
<h2>Architecture</h2><br>
<p>Resting on a gray granite foundation, the Neo-Classic building is a steel-framed, flat-roofed structure clad with Indiana limestone. The south (front) elevation has eleven bays, separated by three-story Ionic engaged columns and flanked by entry pavilions. Each pavilion has a central cast-bronze and glass doorway, reached by a wide, shallow gray granite stair flanked by pedestals with heroic allegorical sculptures by John Massey Rhind entitled Industry, Science (or Justice), Agriculture, and Literature.</p><br>
<p>Completed in 1905, the new federal building was originally U-shaped. The symmetrical facade features evenly spaced Ionic pilasters and terraces with stone balusters. A heavy classical cornice tops the building. A five-story addition, completed in 1938, enclosed the original U-shaped plan, creating an interior courtyard. The addition is compatible with the original building, featuring classical ornamentation mixed with modern details such as the stylized relief over the entrances.</p><br>
<p>The original impressive scale and richly ornamented interior design elements remain intact. Mosaic tile ceilings, cantilevered marble staircases, and much of the original decorative artwork and furnishings are still in place. The major interior spaces of the building are the first-floor lobbies and connecting corridor and the original courtrooms at the southeast and southwest corners of the second floor. The exterior entry doors at the southeast and southwest corners of the first floor open into barrel-vaulted corridors with white marble walls and brown and green marble pilasters and columns. The corridors lead to vaulted octagonal vestibules that feature red marble walls and gray Tuscan columns, as well as Roman-style mosaics on the ceilings. Arched openings of the octagonal vestibules lead to lobbies with elevators and grand staircases, and to the four-part vaulted connecting corridor. The semicircular marble staircases are among the finest examples of cantilevered (supported only from one end) stone stairs in the United States.</p><br>
<p>Among the most impressive interior features of the building are the Depression-era murals. Working under the Treasury Relief Art Project, which aimed to restore faith in the country through patriotic and historically themed art, master artist Grant Christian painted murals that depict the history of transportation and delivery of mail in Indianapolis. Christian was paid $1.55 per hour while his assistant, Reynolds Selfridge, received half that much. The courtrooms feature handsome marble floors, colored marble and plaster wall finishes, and elaborately ornamented, gilded, and painted plaster beam and panel ceilings with skylights. Bronzed railings, stained-glass windows, and heavy wrought-iron gates provide detail to these rooms, which also still have their original furniture. Allegorical representations of the Appeal to Justice and Justice and Mercy by William B. Van Ingen placed above each judge&#39;s bench symbolize the seriousness of their responsibility.</p><br>
<p>Depression-era interior modifications were mostly cosmetic in nature. These included replacement of open metal grillwork doors on the elevators with polished metal doors, and installation of dark green marble-faced walls at elevator entrances. Modern translucent panels replaced the original stained-glass skylights in the second-floor courtrooms.</p><br>
<p>The first-floor east–west corridor is no longer used as a post office. The postal service windows and mailboxes were removed when these functions were shifted to widely dispersed annexes. Replicas of the service windows were added during the course of restoration, returning the space to its original appearance. In recent years, the General Services Administration (GSA) has reversed some past modifications made in the name of modernization, and has begun conserving important elements of the building. GSA has replaced modern lighting with appropriate period features, repaired mosaic tile ceilings, and restored exterior stonework.</p><br>
<h2>Significant events</h2><br>
<p>1902–1905: The Federal Building and USA Courthouse is constructed.</p><br>
<p>1935: Treasury Relief Art Project murals by Grant Wright Christian depict the history of transportation and mail delivery in Indianapolis.</p><br>
<p>1938: Addition of north wing is completed.</p><br>
<p>1962: GSA&#39;s ongoing preservation work begins.</p><br>
<p>1974: The Federal Building and USA Courthouse is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.</p><br>
<p>2003: Building renamed in honor of USA Senator Birch Bayh of Indiana.</p><br>
<h2>Building facts</h2><br>
<p>Architects: John Hall Rankin and Thomas Kellogg</p><br>
<p>Construction dates: 1902-1905</p><br>
<p>Landmark status: Listed in the National Register of Historic Places</p><br>
<p>Location: The city block bounded by Ohio, Meridian, Pennsylvania, and New York Streets</p><br>
<p>Architectural style: Classical Revival</p><br>
<p>Primary materials: Indiana limestone sheathing over steel framing and reinforced concrete; gray granite base and stairs</p><br>
<p>Prominent feature: Elaborate interior finishes including marble, plaster, and mosaics</p><br>
<h2>Attribution</h2><br>
<p>The E. Ross Adair Federal Building and USA Courthouse is a historic post office, courthouse, and federal office building located at Fort Wayne in Allen County, Indiana. The building is a courthouse of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Indiana. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2006 as USA Post Office and Courthouse.</p><br>
<h2>Building history</h2><br>
<p>Fort Wayne historically served as a transportation and communication center located at the confluence of the St. Marys and St. Joseph rivers, which meet to form the Maumee River. In the 1840s, the Wabash and Erie Canal opened in Fort Wayne, and the town became a bustling business center. The population continued to increase when the arrival of the railroad boosted industrial growth. By the 1920s, Fort Wayne was an important city in the Midwest and consequently required federal services. Officials planned for a post office, federal office building, and federal courthouse. In 1928, Congress authorized funds for the acquisition of a site through the Public Buildings Act of 1926, which appropriated resources for federal buildings throughout the United States. Congress earmarked additional funds for construction through the same legislation. Federal officials retained private architects Guy Mahurin, who was from Fort Wayne, and Benjamin Morris, a New Yorker. The building was designed under the auspices of James A. Wetmore, acting supervising architect of the USA Treasury Department.</p><br>
<p>Excavation for the new building was completed in 1931. Many contracting firms submitted construction bids. Fortunately, the bids were lower than federal officials anticipated, which allowed impressive design features such as the entry plaza and marble floors to be incorporated into the project budget. Ralph Sollitt and Sons of South Bend, Indiana, constructed the building.</p><br>
<p>The building has a structural system of reinforced concrete and was one of the first large federal buildings to use this method rather than a steel frame. The reinforced concrete technique saved $30,000. Construction was completed in 1932, with an opening ceremony held on October 29 of that year.</p><br>
<p>In 2000, the building was named to honor E. Ross Adair, a Republican congressman from Indiana&#39;s Fourth District. Adair, who was born in Fort Wayne in 1907 and died there in 1983, served in the USA Army during World War II and was ambassador to Ethiopia from 1971-1974. He was in private legal practice at the time of his death.</p><br>
<p>The post office vacated the building in 1987. Currently, it houses the USA District Court, USA Bankruptcy Court, and other federal offices. The building was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2006 as USA Post Office and Courthouse.</p><br>
<h2>Architecture</h2><br>
<p>The E. Ross Adair Federal Building and USA Courthouse occupies a parcel of land bounded by Douglas Avenue and Harrison, Brackenridge, and Webster streets. It is designed in the Stripped Classical style of architecture, which was frequently used for federal building design during the Depression era and was advocated by Louis A. Simon, who oversaw federal building design under Acting Supervising Architect James A. Wetmore. It features classically inspired symmetry, massing, and materials, but without the abundant ornamentation that was common on some earlier styles of federal architecture. Instead, its stylized decorative elements are characteristic of those found in Art Deco architecture. The imposing building portrayed the dignity and stability of the federal presence during a difficult time in American history.</p><br>
<p>The building rises three stories above a basement and is clad in gray-buff limestone with a granite base and entrance steps. Replacement aluminum sash windows are found throughout the building. The facade faces east toward the entry plaza and Harrison Street. The bays are divided by classically inspired columns with carved capitals in a stylized leaf pattern reminiscent of Corinthian columns. Eagle motifs are found on metal spandrel panels that separate the first and second floors; limestone panels with simple medallions separate the second and third levels. The building is topped by a cornice that contains the gutter system and features carved lion heads at evenly spaced intervals.</p><br>
<p>Projecting pavilions at each end of the facade contain entrances that are topped by original cast-aluminum grilles. The door openings have stone surrounds with carved cornices containing stylized floral and leaf patterns. Carved stone medallions containing eagle motifs are located above each entrance.</p><br>
<p>The interior contains several significant spaces that retain their historic finishes and features and continue to convey the grandeur of the building. The entry vestibules have floors covered in contrasting marble that forms a central star design with a diamond-shaped border. Walls are also clad in marble with molded door and window surrounds and fluted pilasters. Built-in marble benches are below windows. The pale marble is St. Genevieve Golden Vein and the darker marble is Verde Antique. Elaborate plaster coffered ceilings glazed a rich golden brown top the space.</p><br>
<p>The postal lobby on the first floor features marble floors, marble walls, decorative plaster ceilings, and ornamental cast-aluminum door and window surrounds. Although postal services are no longer located in the building, original postal window openings with cast aluminum surrounds and marble sills remain. Above the postal windows are large transom windows with leaded glass.</p><br>
<p>The district courtroom on the second floor is another important space. Its walls have dark green marble bases below mahogany wall panels with walnut burl inlay. Ornate bronze grilles and wall sconces are original features. The ornamental plaster cornice transitions into a plaster coffered ceiling with alternating octagonal and square designs that have been painted in a polychromatic color scheme.</p><br>
<p>One of the most impressive features of the site is the elaborate plaza along the Harrison Street facade. The plaza is reached by granite steps that contain a landing with a flagpole with a simply decorated bronze base. Integral granite benches form walls that enclose the plaza. The rear plaza bench, which is 40 feet long, is carved with the signs of the zodiac on the back while the arms have carved stylized leaf motifs.</p><br>
<h2>Significant events</h2><br>
<p>1928: Congress authorizes funding for federal building in Fort Wayne under the Public Buildings Act of 1926</p><br>
<p>1931-1932: Building constructed</p><br>
<p>1987: Post Office vacates building</p><br>
<p>2000: Building renamed to honor E. Ross Adair</p><br>
<p>2006: Building listed in the National Register of Historic Places</p><br>
<h2>Building facts</h2><br>
<p>Location:1300 South Harrison Street</p><br>
<p>Architects: Guy Mahurin and Benjamin Morris</p><br>
<p>Construction Dates: 1931-1932</p><br>
<p>Architectural Style: Stripped Classical</p><br>
<p>Landmark Status: Listed in the National Register of Historic Places</p><br>
<p>Primary Materials: Limestone and Granite Prominent</p><br>
<p>Features: Stylized Art-Deco ornamentation; Reinforced concrete construction; Granite plaza</p><br>
<p>The United States Post Office and Courthouse, Dubuque, Iowa is a courthouse of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Iowa located in Dubuque, Iowa. Completed in 1934, it was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1985. It is a contributing resource within the Cathedral Historic District.</p><br>
<h2>Building history</h2><br>
<p>As Dubuque expanded during the 1920s, the post office was not large enough to handle the increasing volume of mail. Rather than enlarge the existing building, city officials decided to construct a new post office. Congressman Thomas J. B. Robinson led the effort to secure a more appropriate postal facility. Officials determined that the new building would function as both a post office and courthouse, and the building continues to serve these purposes today.</p><br>
<p>The building was constructed with funding from the 1926 Public Buildings Act, in which Congress appropriated substantial resources for Federal buildings throughout the United States. Dubuque received approximately $650,000 for site acquisition and construction costs. Renowned city planner John Nolen intended for the building to be part of his civic design, "Administrative Center at Washington Park," which he developed in 1931. City officials hoped to construct a city hall, courthouse, and park adjacent to the post office, but these plans were never realized.</p><br>
<p>The Courthouse was designed by the Office of the Supervising Architect under James A. Wetmore, who received input from Iowa architects. Among the local designers was the office of Proudfoot, Rawson, Souers & Thomas, a highly respected Des Moines firm. This venerable firm (including earlier variations of the founding office) had a long of history of designing high-profile public buildings in Iowa, including the Polk County Courthouse in Des Moines and buildings for Iowa State University and the University of Iowa. Although little is known about the Dubuque architect involved in the project, Herbert Kennison, he likely served as an onsite consultant and provided the valued contribution of a designer who was also a local resident.</p><br>
<p>The building&#39;s cornerstone was laid in 1932, and a dedication ceremony was held the following year. The building was occupied in early 1934. In 1985, it was listed in the National Register of Historic Places as a contributing resource within the Cathedral Historic District, which encompasses historically significant residences and public buildings.</p><br>
<h2>Architecture</h2><br>
<p>The United States Post Office and Courthouse is located in the heart of the business district in downtown Dubuque, Iowa, and fronts Washington Park. Construction commenced in 1932 and was completed in 1934. The building, which was designed in the Art Deco style, displays the strong rectilinear qualities that influenced Modern architecture in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s. The building has a form that is similar to public architecture of earlier periods, but most of the elaborate ornamentation found on buildings from previous eras was omitted. The result is clean and restrained, yet still monumental. Many civic buildings constructed during the Great Depression display this reserved quality.</p><br>
<p>The building consists of a centrally placed, projecting, four-story tower flanked by three-story wings. The tower was originally designed to accommodate an observation room for the local weather bureau. The exterior is clad in cream-colored Bedford limestone cut into ashlar (squared and smooth) blocks. Decorative details that are consistent with typical Art Deco ornamentation are found on the building. These include stylized flowers, swags, dentils (rectangular blocks), and chevron (V-shaped) elements. The corners of the tower are chamfered with a 45-degree bevel cut and contain stylized eagle motifs that express the Federal governments presence in Dubuque. The tall, vertical windows are evenly spaced and have bronze mullions, which are common on Art Deco architecture. The windows are separated by fluted pilasters (attached columns) that add to the classical appeal of the buildings design.</p><br>
<p>The interior features several important murals in the lobby vestibule. The murals were funded with $2,000 of the original money allotted for construction of the building. Although a competition to select an artist was held, officials intended to select Grant Wood, the famous Iowa painter of "American Gothic," to complete the murals. When Wood did not enter the competition, William E. L. Bunn was selected. The selection was subsequently overturned in favor of a painter named Bertrand Adams. As a compromise, both Bunn and Adams, who each studied and worked with Wood and were friends from the University of Iowa, were allowed to paint murals. Adams painted "Early Settlers of Dubuque" in 1936 and 1937. The painting depicts several symbols of the citys pioneering days, such as the Julien Dubuque Monument and the Meskwaki Native American village. Adams also represented impending industrialization by painting the Dubuque Shot Tower and a bridge. Bunn painted "Early Mississippi Packet Dubuque III&#39;" (also referred to as "Early Mississippi Steamboats") at the same time. His mural illustrates life in Dubuque in 1870, when steamboats were a primary method of transportation in the Midwest. The two murals show a harmony of scale and color use.</p><br>
<p>The lobby is also decorated with American walnut veneer panels topped by an ornamental cornice with designs of leaves and circles. Bronze grilles with geometric patterns are a typical Art Deco feature. The main staircase on the north end of the building is richly finished with rose-gray marble wainscot, stairs, and landings. The brushed aluminum railing adds a strong Art Deco character to the space.</p><br>
<p>The courtroom is located on the second floor. Cardiff green marble encircles the base of the room. American walnut paneling is laid in a herringbone pattern and topped with a scalloped band of wood. The scalloped motif is repeated in metal grilles and furniture. The most elaborate feature of the room is the plaster cornice with carved dentils, leaves, floral designs, and chevrons highlighted with metallic paint.</p><br>
<h2>Significant events</h2><br>
<p>1932-1934: United States Post Office and Courthouse constructed</p><br>
<p>1933: Cornerstone dedication ceremony</p><br>
<p>1935: Competition held to select artists for murals</p><br>
<p>1937: Murals by Bertrand Adams and William Bunn completed</p><br>
<p>1985: United States Post Office and Courthouse listed in the National Register of Historic Places as a contributing resource within the Cathedral Historic District</p><br>
<p>The United States Courthouse, also known as the Federal Building, is a historic building located in Davenport, Iowa, United States. It has historically housed a post office, courthouse, and other offices of the United States government. The building now serves only as a federal courthouse, housing operations of the eastern division of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Iowa. In 2018, the operations of the Rock Island division of the United States District Court for the Central District of Illinois were also moved there.</p><br>
<h2>Building history</h2><br>
<h3>Predecessor building</h3><br>
<p>Part of the site occupied by the courthouse was previously the site of an 1891 post office, completed in 1896 under the supervision of architect Willoughby J. Edbrooke. The 1891 building also became home to an office of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Iowa in 1904. A wing added in 1909 did little to alleviate the crowding in the building. The city experienced an economic boom during the 1920s that lasted into the early 1930s. The construction of high-rise buildings downtown, including hotels and department stores, spurred the need for a new building to house the post office and federal courts. By 1932, the Great Depression had put many people out of work. Federal projects, including construction of a lock and dam, improvements to the seawall, and road construction provided employment for Davenport residents.</p><br>
<p>In 1930, Congress appropriated $655,000 for the construction of a new federal building on the site of the 1891 building, plus the purchase of two adjacent parcels. Demolition of the early post office and courthouse took place in April 1932.</p><br>
<h3>Construction</h3><br>
<p>Construction of the new building took just over 500 days.</p><br>
<p>Local architect Seth J. Temple designed the building, which was commissioned by the Office of the Supervising Architect of the Treasury. Temple studied at the American Academy in Rome and the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and taught at the University of Illinois School of Architecture in Urbana. Other Davenport buildings that Temple designed include Davenport Hall, the Union Bank and Office building, and the Blackhawk and Burlington hotels.</p><br>
<p>The building was completed for approximately $500,000, which was significantly less than the original appropriation, and city residents and officials gathered for a dedication ceremony on October 15, 1933. Constructed as a post office and courthouse, the building retained both of those functions until about 1965. The post office moved out of the building at that time and the USA General Services Administration (GSA) acquired the building.</p><br>
<h2>Architecture</h2><br>
<p>The USA Courthouse is a skillfully executed example of Depression-era architecture that invokes the Art Deco style. The three-story building is essentially rectangular, though a portion of the building near the rear has only one story. The building has a steel frame and integral concrete beam floors, with cladding that includes a coursed granite base and Minnesota Kasota travertine limestone on the north, east, and west elevations. The cladding of the south elevation is buff-colored brick laid in a Flemish bond pattern. The building has a flat composite roof with a parapet.</p><br>
<p>The main entry is in the north elevation, which is the most elaborate. The entablature above the third story windows projects slightly from the vertical surface of the building, set off by a limestone stringcourse. A decorative parapet at the top of the building features a carved limestone frieze with a stylized Ionic order capital and shield design. The elevation is nine bays wide. The second and eighth bays feature ground floor entrance doors, each with dark gray granite surrounds. Immediately above the doors are circular limestone panels featuring stylized carved eagles. Pairs of bronze light stanchions with granite bases flank each door, each with an embossed chevron and geometric designs. The door surrounds feature stylized carvings that imitate Beaux-Arts style classical pilasters. Embossed bronze spandrels separate the second and third story windows.</p><br>
<p>The most significant interior space is the two-story courtroom that occupies the central portion of the second floor, and its adjacent judges chambers, library, and restroom. Flat geometric patterns and chevron designs reflect the architectural details of the buildings exterior, as do the fluted classical pilasters. The interior of the east doors, which provide the main entry to the courtroom, are covered with leather and trimmed with metal studs. A base of rouge marble rings the room. The laurel paneling is laid in a herringbone pattern. The wood grain of the wainscoting is vertically oriented. The cornice frieze, carved to depict chevrons and stylized leaves, is black walnut. Black walnut insets depicting leaves and berries are located above the doors on the west side of the room. Some of the furnishings are original. Additional original interior details that remain include the flooring, some of which are terrazzo floors and others are marble. The wainscoting, cladding in bathrooms and vestibules, door surrounds in the vestibules and the first floor elevator lobby, stairway treads, and hallway baseboards are original marble. Some lighting fixtures in the stairwells and hallways are also original.</p><br>
<p>After the first renovation in the 1960s, which converted the former postal facilities into offices, there were additional renovations during the 1970s and 1990s. Between 2003 and 2005, the building was renovated under GSA&#39;s Design Excellence program, which provides design assistance to high-quality public buildings by stressing creativity and providing design feedback from peers. The project, which converted the building to a dedicated courthouse facility, included the construction of two new courtrooms, restoration of the historic courtroom, and renovation of the first-floor lobby.</p><br>
<p>In 2006, The Spirit of Law and Iowa Reports, paintings created by artist Xiaoze Xie under the auspices of GSA&#39;s Art in Architecture program, were installed in the Davenport Courthouse. The artist hoped that the paintings, installed in the jury assembly room, would "prompt visitors to consider the connections between history and the present and between ideas and realities."</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>1891: Construction of original post office at this location</p><br>
<p>1932-1933: Construction of current building on site</p><br>
<p>1965: GSA acquires building after Post Office vacates building; first floor renovated</p><br>
<p>1972, 1977, 1997: Additional alterations to building</p><br>
<p>2005: Listed in National Register of Historic Places</p><br>
<p>2005: Completion of building modernization under GSA&#39;s Design Excellence program</p><br>
<p>2006: The Spirit of Law and Iowa Reports installed in jury assembly room</p><br>
<h2>Building facts</h2><br>
<p>Location: 131 East Fourth Street</p><br>
<p>Architect: Seth J. Temple</p><br>
<p>Construction Dates: 1932-1933</p><br>
<p>Architectural Style: Art Deco</p><br>
<p>Landmark Status: Listed in the National Register of Historic Places</p><br>
<p>Primary Materials: Steel, concrete, limestone, and granite</p><br>
<p>Prominent Features: Limestone and granite cladding; Wood-paneled courtroom; Stylized motifs carved on building facade</p><br>
