| Originally a courthouse, the Jefferson Market Library has
served the Greenwich Village community for over thirty years. The
building, a New York City landmark, was designed by architects Frederick
Clark Withers and Calvert Vaux (who also assisted in the design of
Central Park) in a Victorian Gothic style. It was erected(along with an
adjacent prison and market) during the years 1875-1877 and cost the city
almost $360,000. What the city got for its money, in addition to an
architectural gem (it was voted one of the ten most beautiful buildings
in America by a poll of architects in the 1880s) was a civil court (on
the second floor, where the Adult Reading Room is now) and a police
court (now the first-floor Children.s Room). The beautiful brick-arched
basement (now the Reference Room) was used as a holding area for
prisoners on their way to jail or trial. Scattered about the building
were offices and chambers, and looming above it all was, and is, the
tower.
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