City Hall
- Architects
- Rafael Guastavino Heins & LaFarge
- Style
- Romanesque Revival
- City
- Manhattan, NY
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The City Hall station, closed since 1945, was built beneath City Hall Park as the southern terminal of the city's first subway line, opened October 27, 1904 as one of the original 28 stations of the New York City Subway. Constructed for the Interborough Rapid Transit Company after the line's approval in 1900, it was the showpiece of the original IRT system, its single curved platform finished with the tilework of Rafael Guastavino under station design by Heins & LaFarge.
the building
Guastavino tile and skylights. The platform and mezzanine feature Rafael Guastavino's vaulted tile work alongside skylights and colored glass, ornament far beyond the utilitarian stations built elsewhere on the line.
Closed but not forgotten. The station closed in 1945 because its short, curved platform could not be lengthened for ten-car trains and sat too close to the Brooklyn Bridge station. The platform survives unused except for occasional tours, while its track still serves as a turning loop for trains.
the style
Heins & LaFarge, the IRT's original station architects, gave City Hall a Romanesque Revival treatment far more elaborate than the system's typical stops, befitting its role as the line's southern terminus.
More on Romanesque Revivalthe architect
The station combines the design work of Heins & LaFarge with the tile vaulting of Rafael Guastavino.
significance
City Hall station is a National Register of Historic Places listed place and a New York City Individual Landmark, designated in 1966, notable as one of the original 28 stations of the New York City Subway.
nearby
- Tweed Courthouse
- New York Times Building
- Home Life Insurance Company Building
- Potter Building
- New York World Building
- Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank Building