Surrogate's Court
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(2012)
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Location | 31 Chambers Street Manhattan, New York City |
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Coordinates | 40°42′48.64″N 74°0′16.52″W / 40.7135111°N 74.0045889°WCoordinates: 40°42′48.64″N 74°0′16.52″W / 40.7135111°N 74.0045889°W |
Built | 1899-1907 |
Architect | John R. Thomas; Horgan & Slattery |
Architectural style | Beaux Arts |
NRHP Reference # | 72000888 |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | January 29, 1972 |
Designated NHL | December 22, 1977 |
Designated NYCL | February 15, 1966 |
The Surrogate's Courthouse, also known as the Hall of Records, is a Beaux Arts municipal building in lower Manhattan in New York City.
Opened in 1907, it is located on the northwest corner of Chambers and Centre Streets, across the street from City Hall Park and from the Municipal Building. It houses the city's Municipal Archives, as well as providing courtrooms for the Surrogate's Court for New York County on the fifth floor.
The well-proportioned seven-story, steel-framed building is faced with granite from Hallowell, Maine, and contains elaborate marble interiors. The three-part Chambers Street facade features a triple-arched main entrance centered along the two-story base, above which is centered a three-story Corinthian colonnade topped by a cornice, a sixth story, another cornice and a mansard roof.
It was designed to be fireproof, in order to safely house the city's paper records. The Beaux Arts exterior features fifty-four sculptures by prize-winning artists Philip Martiny and Henry Kirke Bush-Brown, representing both allegorical figures — such as New York in Its Infancy, New York in Revolutionary Times, Philosophy, Law, and the seasons — and eminent figures from the city's past, including Peter Stuyvesant, DeWitt Clinton, David Pietersen De Vries, and mayors Caleb Heathcote, Abram Stevens Hewitt, Philip Hone, Cadwallader David Colden and James Duane.