Municipal Building | Gail Cornell

Published: Sept. 24, 2020, 11 a.m.

Architectural historian Gail Cornell talks about the Manhattan Municipal Building. Home to thirteen of NYC’s municipal agencies, the Municipal Building is one of the city’s most imposing presences, with an influence on civic architecture that reached as far as Stalinist Russia. Its tower is topped by Adolph Weinman’s statue “Civic Fame” and its grandly proportioned arch frames a tunnel once traversed by Chambers Street traffic.