Jefferson Market Library

The Jefferson Market Library, originally a courthouse, was designed in the Victorian Gothic style and was erected between 1875 and 1877 alongside an adjacent prison and market. It cost $360,000 to build and housed a police court, a civil court, and a basement where prisoners were held before they headed off to jail.

The building was continuously lauded for its unique and splendid architecture and was often touted as one of the most beautiful buildings in the country at the turn of the century. The courthouse was the site of a number of famous trials, including the murder trial of Harry Thaw, who was accused of killing architect Stanford White. The famous trial, which also involved chorus girl Evelyn Nesbit, became the subject for E.L. Doctorow’s novel Ragtime, which was eventually turned into an award-winning Broadway musical.

After decades of hosting a number of other sensational cases, the Jefferson Market Library became New York City’s Police Academy. The building closed its doors in 1958.

After several years of deterioration, a plan was hatched to demolish this breathtaking building, which by this time lacked its original splendor. Concerned Greenwich Village residents, however, saved it from the wrecking ball, and by 1965, plans were in place to turn the old courthouse into a branch of the New York Public Library system. It opened in 1967, with its “cut stone faces and flowers, spiral stairs, soaring stained glass windows, [and] the feeling, form and sensibility of another age.” (Ada Huxtable, architectural critic, New York Times, 1967)