New York City Hall Competition

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THE NEW YORK CITY HALL COMPETITION

At the twelfth annual exhibition of the Architectural League of New York, W. & G. Audsley displayed their entry in the competition for a new municipal government building for New York City. It is difficult to imagine that the display did not evoke some bitterness on the part of the Audsleys and the attendees given the bizarre outcome of the competition. King's Handbook of New York City (1893) provides the background:

The City Hall has been in its time the finest piece of architecture in the country, but it is surpassed now by many buildings of more imposing structure if no so classical in their architectural style. It was built between the years of 1803 and 1812, at a cost of over $500,000. Its front and east and west sides are of marble, but sandstone was regarded as good enough for the rear, the city being at that time mostly on its front. In 1890 the rear was painted, making all sides uniform in appearance. The city has so outgrown it that many other buildings have to used for the public offices. An enormous new City Hall, of white marble, is to be built in 1893-95, at a cost exceeding $4,000,000. Richard M. Hunt, Napoleon Le Brun, and William R. Ware form the advisory committee of architects.

Several mayoral administrations from 1888 had unsuccessfully proposed architectural competitions for this purpose. . Rebecca Read Shanor, The City That Never Was (New York: Viking-Penguin, Inc., 1988), 51. The competition organized by Mayor Thomas Gilroy called for the demolition of the old City Hall with that space and the area on both sides of a rear courthouse to be utilized for the new structure. The resultant land parcel was in the form of a "U", but prospective designs were not required to occupy all of this space.

Architects were invited to submit their plans for a five story, white marble structure prior to the noon, 1 September 1893 deadline. The second through sixth winners were to be rewarded with a prize of $2,000 each. The architects of the selected design were to collect a commission of five percent of the first $1,000,000, four percent of the second $1,000,000 and three percent of any construction cost over $2,000,000. . Instructions for Architects in Preparing Plans for a Public Building to be Erected in the City Hall Park in the City of New York (New York: Martin B. Brown, 1893). To insure fairness, a three member jury of non-entrant architects was nominated by the American Institute of Architects and the Architectural League of New York. The names of the entrants were to appear only within sealed envelopes accompanying the unmarked plans and drawings.

The reason for this caution was no doubt inspired by the lessons learned from the construction of the New York County Courthouse behind City Hall in 1874. Of the $14,000,000 allocated for its erection, an estimated $10,000,000 found its way into the pockets of corrupt politicians in the "Boss Tweed Ring." . Norval White & Elliot Willensky, The AIA Guide to New York City (New York: Collier Books, 1978), 31.

During the judging of the designs, there arose a feeling against the destruction of the old City Hall, which was popularly associated with Alexander Hamilton, George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln. The New York Historical Society declared its willingness to relocate the structure, stone by stone, if necessary, for its preservation. Finally, on 8 May 1894, New York State Governor Roswell Flower signed into law a bill prohibiting the demolition or relocation of the old City Hall. . Rebecca Read Shanor, The City That Never Was (New York: Viking-Penguin, Inc., 1988), 56.

In the meanwhile, the architectural jury had selected the six superior designs from the 134 submitted, but found none to be entirely satisfactory. According to the terms of the competition, the sealed envelopes containing the entrants' names could not be opened until after the selection of a single design had been made. This impasse continued until 1895 when New York State enacted a special law to permit the opening of the envelopes and the awarding of the prize money. When the winning designs were to be matched with their creators, the sealed envelopes were discovered to be missing. After a year, the errant envelopes were ultimately discovered in another room of City Hall.

A number of the published winning designs tended to strongly resembled the Hôtel de Ville, the city hall of Paris, France. The Audsleys, however, designed their entry in their Neo-Grec style which was by then somewhat out of fashion. Two drawings of the entry, a front elevation and a perspective, are preserved at the Architectural Archives of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. The perspective drawing, in particular, is an exceptionally fine example of architectural rendering and equals or surpasses those produced by the more prominent firms of the era.

One rather curious aspect of the Audsley design was that it retained the picturesque asymmetry of the Gothic Revival at a time when the highly formal Neo-classical style was in the ascendent. The focal point of the structure was a massive domed clock tower of about fifteen stories. Four miniature versions of this tower appeared elsewhere on the facade. The architectural ornament was again taken from the work of Alexander Thomson as had been the case at the Bowling Green Offices and Layton Art Gallery. The Mansard roof, also used in the Layton Gallery, provided a more pronounced French feeling here than in other Audsley buildings. Perhaps the architects found some inspiration in the great gray granite pile of the Philadelphia City Hall which was constructed in the elaborate French Second Empire style of the 1870s. The similarities of design with connected pavilions and a rather lofty tower may be a link.

Philadelphia City Hall

This was the second time that the Audsleys were unsuccessful in a competition for a structure of this type. In 1866, they had joined the 135 entrants in quest of the commission for the Manchester Town Hall. . Roger H. Harper, Victorian Architectural Competitions (London: Mansell Publishing, Ltd., 1983), 117.

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