Michael J. Dillon Memorial United States Courthouse
| City of Buffalo Police and Fire Headquarters at the Michael J. Dillon U.S. Courthouse Building | |
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| Former names | Michael J. Dillon Memorial United States Courthouse |
| General information | |
| Type | Low rise |
| Architectural style | Art Moderne |
| Location | 68 Court Street, Buffalo, New York |
| Completed | 1936 |
| Design and construction | |
| Architect | Green and Sons; Bley and Lyman |
The City of Buffalo Police and Fire Headquarters at the Michael J. Dillon U.S. Courthouse Building is the headquarters for the Buffalo Fire Department and Buffalo Police department and serves as a public safety building. The building had previously served as a courthouse of the United States District Court for the Western District of New York. Built in 1936, the building was renamed Michael J. Dillon Memorial U.S. Courthouse in 1986 in honor of murdered IRS Revenue Officer Michael J. Dillon. It is located at 68 Court Street.
The monolithic U.S. Courthouse in Buffalo, officially rededicated in 1987 in honor of longtime Internal Revenue Service employee Michael J. Dillon, occupies an entire block along Niagara Square, the city's civic center since 1802. Construction of the seven-story sandstone and steel courthouse in 1936 resulted from Buffalo's evolution as one of the country's most important industrial centers, which brought numerous federal agencies to the city. The courthouse concentrated the federal presence in an excellent example of the Art Moderne architecture favored for government buildings funded by President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal programs.
Federal government facilities had become so overcrowded by 1928 that the citizens of Buffalo pressured Congress for a new building to house all Federal offices in the city. The Emergency Relief and Construction Act of 1932 authorized the construction of a number of federal buildings, including the Dillon Courthouse. Under the authority of the 1926 Public Buildings Act, the Office of the Supervising Architect was responsible for the design of all federal buildings. Due to economic pressures on small architectural firms during the Depression, local architects received some of these commissions. In January 1933, the Supervising Architect's Office retained two influential Buffalo firms, Green and Sons and Bley and Lyman, to prepare plans for the new courthouse.
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