BUILDING ONCE PART OF COURT-JAIL COMPLEX City Council Press Release
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“With this investment in Jefferson Market Library, we are not only making needed renovations to a historic building integral to the character of the West Village - we are also keeping doors of opportunity open to New Yorkers,” said Speaker Quinn.
“The programs offered by our public libraries help people further their careers and enrich their lives. We cannot allow Jefferson Market Library to further deteriorate when New Yorkers have so much invested in this unique and essential resource. I want to thank the Mayor, State Senator Tom Duane, and everyone else that has made the preservation of this building and the expansion of library service city-wide a priority.”
In February 2007, LI/Saltzman Architects completed a report, funded by Speaker Quinn and Senator (and former Council Member) Duane, concluding that there was significant deterioration of the building’s sandstone and brickwork. Because of this deterioration, along with open mortar joints and cracked stone, water had penetrated the façade, causing movement and settlement of the building’s stonework and rusting of the building’s iron structure.
The corrosion of the iron framework and cracks throughout the stonework has caused pieces of sandstone to become loose and unsafe, necessitating a sidewalk bridge that has been in place for four years. In addition, the entrance portico (located on 6th Ave) has detached from the building and is leaning slightly toward the street.
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“I am thrilled that the City Council and the Mayor have provided additional funds beyond those that I and Speaker Quinn secured as successive Council Members from District Three, so that this landmark Library can be structurally restored and serve our community for years and years to come,” said State Senator Tom Duane.
“With the funding finally secured, and the building's safety and preservation concerns addressed, we can begin to move forward, with the community, in pushing for a historic building that is accessible to all of its users.”
“For generations, the firewatcher's tower soaring over Sixth Avenue has fueled the literary imaginations of children and adults alike,” Manhattan Borough President Scott M. Stringer said.
“This library is like something you'd expect to find at Hogwarts - yet it's right here in that most magical of all lands - Greenwich Village.
“Thanks to the Speaker and to the Mayor for making sure future New Yorkers will be able to spin their own tales about this magnificent gothic tower and the Victorian treasure down below.”
Speaker Quinn has allocated $2.7 million dollars to these renovations, having already allocated $1.39 million in previous years.
The Mayor's office has provided matching funds in the amount of $2.2 million.
In addition, Senator Duane had previously allotted over $700,000 to the project when he was a Council Member, bringing the Jefferson Market Library's total capital funding to over $7 million.
The Jefferson Market Branch Library is one of the great architectural wonders of the NYPL system, and is an important location in the history of the West Village.
Designed by Frederick Clark Withers and Calvert Vaux, it was erected between 1875-1877 and initially served as a courthouse.
By 1927 the building no longer served as a courthouse, and traded hands amongst various agencies.
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In 1958 the building, by then abandoned, was slated for demolition until area residents (including E.E. Cummings and the actor Maurice Evans) rallied for its preservation.
In 1961 Mayor Robert F. Wagner declared the building would be converted to its present use.
“The Library is tremendously grateful to Speaker Quinn, Senator Duane and Mayor Bloomberg for the support that will enable us to bring this National Historic Landmark back to its original grandeur,” said Paul LeClerc, President of The New York Public Library.
“The Jefferson Market Library is probably the most beloved and iconic building in the entire Village,” said Brad Hoylman, the Chair of Community Board 2 in Manhattan.
“On behalf of the board, I'd like to express my gratitude to Speaker Quinn and the City Council for providing the funds to return the library to its former architectural glory, as well as strengthening its role as a resource for Villagers by increasing the library's operating hours from five to six days a week.”
This year Speaker Quinn and the City Council were also able to secure $320 million in funding for the City’s three library systems to provide for six-day library service throughout the five boroughs' grandeur,” said Paul LeClerc, President of The New York Public Library.
In extending the hours of operation, libraries are able to increase access to vital services like improving literacy programs, providing career development, and increasing access to technology.
JEFFERSON Mkt. JAIL/COURT COMPLEX IN NEW BOOK ABOUT Lt. BECKER CASE
A less laudatory description of the Jefferson Market Court/Jail complex appears in the first chapter of Mike Dash's new non-fiction book "Satan's Circus" about the case of NYPD Lt. Charles Becker, the only policeman ever executed for murder in the U.S. He was held in the Tombs during his two trials.
The court/jail complex was the setting for the dramatic September 1896 confrontation between The Red Badge of Courage author Stephen Crane, then a reporter with William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal, and Becker, then a patrolman still learning how to use his law officer position for corrupt gain. Crane's testimony resulted in a young woman Becker had arrested being freed. Here is the relevant excerpt from pages 11 and 12:
Jefferson Market Police Court, where [Patrolman Charles] Becker’s prisoner [Ruby Young] was brought shortly before noon, was a scowling Gothic monstrosity that loomed over a corner on Tenth Street and Sixth Avenue, its ornate redbrick facade making it look more like a place of worship than a court of law.
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"From time to time a policeman at the door spoke sharply to some incoming person. 'Take your hat off!' He displayed in his voice the horror of a priest when the sanctity of the chapel is defied or forgotten."
The Market’s magistrates processed an endless parade of drunks, streetwalkers, delinquent saloonkeepers, and petty thieves with mechanical efficiency, devoting just a few minutes to each case. Most of the infractions they dealt with were minor and were punished with small fines. The more persistent offenders might receive sentences of a few days in the cells.
By the time Young was called to the bar, the courthouse was crowded, as it was every day, with a throng of clerks, policemen, witnesses, and gawking spectators, many of whom had turned attendance at the Market into a sort of hobby.
The latter were, Crane had once noted with a frisson of disgust, "mere parasites who wore an air of being in wait for a cry of anguish, some loud painful protestation that would bring the proper thrill to their jaded, world-weary nerves.”
When, at the end of an earlier hearing, a young servant girl was sent to jail for theft and let out a howl of anguish, “the loungers, many of them, underwent a spasmodic movement as if they had been knived.”
In ordinary circumstances Young’s hearing would soon have been over.
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Still, Ruby had done what she could with her appearance.
Despite her long night in the cells, the auburn hair that made her so recognizable had been pinned up and artfully arranged, and although she had slept in the clothes she had worn the previous night, one of the reporters in the courthouse wrote that she “certainly did not look dissipated and was very neatly and prettily dressed.”
The girl sobbed violently, and not entirely for effect, as she was led forward, and stood before Magistrate Robert C. Cornell “flushed and downcast while a charge of soliciting was read against her.
Becker gave his evidence first. Clad now in his patrolman s uniform, with its thick blue jacket and large shiny buttons fastened up to the neck, he seemed a much more imposing figure than he had in plainclothes hours earlier. He was strongly built, with a bulky body that was mostly muscle, large hands, broad shoulders, and an impressive chest. A billy club and a service—issue Colt revolver protruded from his belt, and he carried his tall white helmet tucked under one arm.
or on the web site of Mike Dash.
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