Albany City Hall is the seat of government of the city of Albany, New York, United States. It houses the office of the mayor, the Common Council chamber, the city and traffic courts, as well as other city services. The present building was designed by Henry Hobson Richardson in the Romanesque style and opened in 1883 at 24 Eagle Street, between Corning Place (then Maiden Lane) and Pine Street. It is a rectangular three-and-a-half-story building with a tower at its southwest corner. The tower contains one of the few municipal carillons in the country, dedicated in 1927, with 49 bells.
Albany's first city hall was the Stadt Huys (; Dutch for "city hall"); sometimes written Stadt Huis), built by the Dutch at what is now the intersection of Broadway and Hudson Avenue, probably in the 1660s, though possibly earlier. It was probably replaced around 1740 with a larger Stadt Huys. In 1754, it was the site of the Albany Congress, where Benjamin Franklin presented the Albany Plan of Union, the first proposal to unite the British American colonies. After the American Revolution brought independence, Albany was declared the state capital in 1797 and the state legislature met in city hall. In 1809 the Legislature opened the first state capitol and Albany's government moved in with it. Two decades later, the city purchased a plot of land at the eastern end of Washington Avenue, across Eagle Street from the capitol and moved its government into a new city hall designed by Philip Hooker that opened in 1832.
In 1880, Hooker's building was destroyed by fire and a new design by Richardson was commissioned. The cornerstone was laid by the local Masonic fraternity in 1881; the building was completed and opened two years later. Because of budget restrictions the original interior was simply designed, consisting chiefly of beaded board partitions, and thus not fireproof; it was entirely rebuilt in 1916–18 from designs by Albany architects Ogden & Gander. The city hall remains essentially as altered at that time, and the exterior is considered one of Richardson's finest works. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) in 1972; it is also a contributing property to the Lafayette Park Historic District, listed six years later.
Building
City Hall occupies the western half of the block with Eagle Street on the west, Lodge Street to the east, and Corning Place and Pine Street on the south and north. The land slopes gently down towards the Hudson River a half-mile (800 m) to the east-southeast, such that the building's rear foundation is exposed. The small Corning Park buffers the building from the Albany Masonic Temple to the east and some other smaller buildings on the block's northwest corner. Academy Park is to the northwest, and East Capitol Park to the southwest, with Washington Avenue (New York State Route 5) dividing them before it ends at the intersection with Eagle just in front of City Hall.
On all the other sides of the block the surrounding neighborhood is densely developed and urban, with primarily government, institutional and commercial buildings. Some of those buildings are also listed on the National Register. To the north, across Pine Street, is the New York Court of Appeals Building, where the state's highest court sits, with the old Albany County courthouse, now county offices, just to its north. Northwest, in Academy Park, is the Old Albany Academy Building, now headquarters of the Albany City School District. Looking west on Washington, the New York State Education Building is visible on the north a short distance away with the state capitol opposite. All, like City Hall, are also contributing properties to the Lafayette Park Historic District, listed on the Register in 1978.
Exterior
The building is a load-bearing masonry design laid out in a rectangle, with a tall, Venetian-style tower, topped by a pyramidal roof, on the southwest corner, and smaller round towers on the northeast and southeast. The nine-by-six-bay main structure is three-and-a-half stories tall. Its exterior walls are rusticated Milford granite with Longmeadow brownstone trim. It is topped with a red tiled cross-gabled roof, hipped on the east-west axis, with a nested gabled projection on either end. On the north side of the cross-gable tall chimneys rise on either side of the main gable; a third, shorter chimney rises from the roofline south of the cross-gable.
Main block
On the west (front) elevation, narrowing steps with wrought iron decorative handrails lead up to the main entrance, triply-recessed triple stone rounded archways, with the central one slightly larger. The archways are flanked by smooth stone columns topped by Corinthian capitals. The arches themselves are segmented, with decorative leaf patterns carved onto them. Each entrance has a double wooden door, with brass trimmings, including kick plate, and glass window with iron grille. At the springline is a piece of carved wood; the one on the central entrance is more ornate, just below it the words "City Hall" are set in brass letters on the entablature. Above each is a semicircular glass transom with ornate iron radial muntins, divided at the center by a fluted wooden panel. Affixed to the one on the central entrance is a brass version of the city's coat of arms and the number 24, in brass.See accompanying photos
To either side is a two-paned recessed casement window with transom and brownstone surround. On the north side is a recessed triple window with transom, stone-mullioned and round-arched with splayed stones, and a similar brownstone surround rising from the brownstone water table that runs from either side of the main entrance. All first-story windows have flower boxes, planted during the season.
On the north profile, fenestration begins on the west with a window with the same treatment as the one just around the corner from it. Below it are two barred rectangular casement windows. East of it, the rest of the facade projects out slightly; two brownstone courses begin at street level at that point. They are interrupted by three paired recessed one-over-one double-hung sash windows, each immediately below a recessed triple narrow one-over-one double-hung sash topped with two casement lights. At street level below the easternmost of these four is a side entrance to the building, wooden double doors with barred upper windows and a lower panel. Next to the upper portion on either side is a decorative stone panel on the facade depicting a carved tree.
The east (rear) facade, facing Corning Park, has exclusively double-hung one-over-one sash on the ground floor, with the same treatment but covered with protective metal screening, beginning with a pair at the corner next to the tower. Next to the south is a triple narrow window, followed by two wider ones. Above them, on the first floor, all windows are single versions of the narrow kind seen on the tower, with a wooden panel replacing the lower light. Midway across the facade a small pavilion projects outward with a small metal gate at its northern corner; on its ground floor is a double pair of narrow windows, with a single large one at the south corner. The first story on the pavilion has wider sash windows.
Adjacent to the tower on the ground floor of the south facade are two screen-protected double windows similar to those on the opposite side except for the mullions being recessed as well. Above them, displaced to the east, are a pair of double recessed windows identical to others on the first story but with only one transom. To the west the facade again projects slightly, aligning with the end of the gable atop it. The easternmost bay is taken, only at ground level, with a recessed entryway featuring double wooden paneled doors with barred upper windows identical to those on the opposite side entrance.
To the west the ground story has three pairs of screened deeply recessed double-hung one-over-one sash that get progressively shorter as the ground slopes up. They culminate with a similar double-pane casement window at the corner with the smaller of the southwest towers. Above them are three cross-windows, their mullions more decorative engaged round smooth columns with ornate capitals, matched by smaller ones between the upper lights. On the edges of the surrounds, narrow smooth round engaged columns support decorative capitals between the windows. Above the casement window, next to the tower, on this story, is another narrow sash window with transom similar to those seen elsewhere on the building.
A projecting stringcourse sets off the second story. Above the entrance is a quadruple-arched loggia opening from the Common Council chambers. Decorative stone balustrades are at the base of each arch; divided by a group of four engaged smooth round stone columns rising from rusticated plinths topped by Corinthian capitals. The arches themselves are formed of one course of segmented brownstone topped by splayed blocks with a decorative cornice along the top and decorative stonework in a leaf pattern at the springline. Behind each arch is a double wooden door with eight square glass panes, divided by a stone mullion and topped by one square glass light and an arched one above, set in a plainer splayed-block arch.
On either side of the loggia is a recessed narrow one-over-one double-hung sash with a blind third pane above. A stone course sets off the arched transom above, framed by a splayed block arch. To the north is a similarly treated wider double window, its tympanum painted with an intricate sunburst design. Around the corner, on the north facade, fenestration of the second story begins with a similarly styled window. To its east is a large quadruple window that echoes the loggia, with the same surrounds around groups of three narrow sash windows topped by two separated panes and tripartite transom under the arches.
On the east, the third story fenestration starts past the tower with a double version of the triple-hung sash two-transom windows on the tower, going into the fourth story. Next is a narrow single version, with a narrower, smaller version above, then double-hung with the lowest of three transoms on the story above blind, filled with a wooden panel, followed by a tripled version, flanked by a single one and then a pair of narrow windows similar to those on the other side. Triple versions of the narrow triple-hung follow on both stories. On the ell, where the beltcourse is absent, adjacent to the southeast tower are two small double-hung sash, with recessed double casement windows in decorative stonework around the top of the tower itself. It and the ell are topped by a stringcourse and molded-looking cornice.
The beltcourse returns on the south facade of the ell, setting off a quadruple version of the narrow double-hung single-upper-light sash, with a splayed block granite mustache in the facade above. Next to the corner of the main block is a single iteration of the same window. On the main block is a triple arched window just like that on the facade opposite.
Another, identical beltcourse sets off the third story. On the front it has six narrow double double-hung, with the single light above. The lintels above the main window and the transoms both are decorated to appear dentilled. Above is a stone cornice decorated in a leaf pattern. At the north a small parapet rises, set off by a gargoyle and decorated with a floral pattern that extends below the beltcourse.