240 Centre Street, formerly the New York City Police Headquarters, is a building in the Little Italy neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City, United States. Designed by the firm Hoppin & Koen, it was the headquarters of the New York City Police Department (NYPD) from 1909 to 1973. Afterward, it was converted into a luxury residential building in 1988 by the firm Ehrenkranz Group & Eckstut, becoming the Police Building Apartments. 240 Centre Street occupies an entire city block between Centre Street to the west, Broome Street to the north, Centre Market Place to the east, and Grand Street to the south. It is a New York City designated landmark and on the National Register of Historic Places.
240 Centre Street was designed in a mixture of the Baroque and Renaissance Revival styles. The structure is clad in limestone and granite. The primary elevation of the facade is along Centre Street, where there is a central portico topped by a dome and flanked by two wings. There is also a porte-cochère to the north, a second portico to the south, and a second entrance to the east. Inside are five above-ground stories and two basement levels. The basements originally contained shooting ranges and mechanical rooms, while the first three stories were used almost exclusively as clerical offices. There was also an armory and drill room on the fourth floor and a telegraph center on the fifth floor. In the 1980s, when the building was converted into 56 (later 55) luxury apartments, the interiors were gutted and rebuilt. Most of the residential units are studio apartments and one- to four-bedroom apartments, and there is also some community space and retail space.
240 Centre Street replaced an older building nearby on Mulberry Street, which had been completed in 1862. Following the 1898 consolidation of the five boroughs into the City of Greater New York, the NYPD also expanded and needed a new headquarters building. Although a site on Centre Market Place was identified in 1903, construction did not begin for two years due to negotiations over funding and the building's location. After a further delay caused by the construction of a nearby subway line, 240 Centre Street formally opened on November 27, 1909. Over the subsequent years, there were several proposals to relocate the headquarters, and the NYPD moved some departments to a nearby building. The NYPD headquarters moved to One Police Plaza in 1973. As proposals for a cultural center and a luxury hotel fell through, the building was abandoned for a decade before being sold to Fourth Jeffersonian Associates in 1984. The structure was then converted into a residential building, a project that was completed in 1988.
Site 240 Centre Street is in the Little Italy neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City, United States. It occupies an entire city block between Centre Street to the west, Broome Street to the north, Centre Market Place to the east, and Grand Street to the south. The land lot is quadrilateral and measures around . The Odd Fellows Hall is directly across Grand Street to the south, while the Stephen Van Rensselaer House on Mulberry Street is one block to the southeast. One block north is Petrosino Square, a public plaza dedicated to Joseph Petrosino, the New York City Police Department's (NYPD) first Italian speaker and an employee at 240 Centre Street.
The building's western frontage on Centre Street is long, while the eastern frontage on Centre Market Place is long. The site measures wide along Grand Street to the south, and wide on Broome Street to the north. Before the development of the present building at 240 Centre Street, the site was occupied by a public market called the Centre Market, which had operated there since 1817.
Architecture The building was designed by the firm Hoppin & Koen. Note: This includes and Accompanying photographs After being converted into a luxury co-op building in 1988 by Ehrenkranz Group & Eckstut, it is known as the Police Building Apartments. When 240 Centre Street was built, a contemporary source described the building as being designed in a Grecian style. A writer for GQ magazine described the building as being designed in a mixture of the Baroque and Renaissance Revival styles. The New York Times and the New York Daily News likened the building's design to that of the Old Bailey courthouse in London. In designing the building, Francis L. V. Hoppin of Hoppin & Koen said the structure's design had taken inspiration from that of New York City Hall, rather than from other police buildings.
Facade
The structure is clad in limestone and granite. Originally, the first three stories and part of the fourth story were to be clad with Indiana limestone, while the basement was to be clad with granite. All the windows were replaced with double-glazed panels when the structure was renovated in the 1980s. The building is split into two wings by a central hall that is topped by a gilded dome and a cupola. Due to the uneven dimensions of the site, the southern wing is wider than the northern wing; however, the facades to the west and east are symmetrical. There are bas reliefs on three elevations of the facade.
Centre Street elevation The main elevation of the facade is the Centre Street elevation, which is also the most ornately decorated. The center of the Centre Street elevation has a portico with fluted columns in the Corinthian order. The main entrance is flanked by a set of pillars, which are topped by figures measuring the five boroughs of New York City. The central figure, which represents Manhattan, is within the pedestal,; just above the main doorway. The central figure is a personification of a woman holding a staff of authority in one hand and the scales of justice in the other. The Manhattan figure measures tall and was carved from one block of stone weighing . The side figures, representing each of the four outer boroughs, hold tablets with the names of each borough. There are stone lions on either side of the entrance. The portico also has sconces and iron grilles.
Above the portico is a four-story cupola with clocks and a gilded dome.; The dome is supported by pairs of columns, some of which protrude outward. Each of the clocks is set within oeils-de-boeuf (small rounded windows). The dome is topped by a lantern that rises above the ground. There are two private gardens adjacent to the dome; these gardens are private terraces for the apartment inside the dome.
The two wings extend off either side of the central portico. Above the wings, on either side of the dome, are Baroque-style towers with narrow windows. The rest of each wing has double-height pilasters in the Corinthian order, which divide the wings vertically into bays. There are pediments above the second-story windows, in addition to architraves above the third-story windows. There are a cornice and balustrade above the third story, and the fourth and fifth stories are placed behind a setback. At the end of either wing is a protruding pavilion with carved window surrounds, broken pediments, and a low dome.
Other elevations The southern elevation on Grand Street has a portico, similar in design to the central portico on Centre Street. At the north end of the building was a private entrance for the New York City Police Commissioner, with an elevator leading straight to the commissioner's office. This entrance includes a French-style porte-cochère above a driveway, although the entrance was no longer frequently used by the 1960s. Above the northern entrance, the facade includes a single bay with a round arch, which in turn is flanked by Corinthian columns. The eastern elevation on Centre Market Place is similar in design to the western elevation, although the detailing there is flat. There is an entrance on Centre Market Place, which was used by prisoners.
Features The building's original plans called for the superstructure to be made partially out of steel. Some of steel were used in the building's construction. There is about of space, spanning five above-ground stories and two basement levels. Originally, the interior of 240 Centre Street was decorated in a green color scheme. The main entrance and first-story hall were made of Vermont marble, while the other stairs were made of cast iron. In addition, the spaces were decorated with white oak. As originally configured, the building had a large number of private elevators, stairways, and hallways to separate the public, police officers, and prisoners from each other. The original interiors were less elaborately decorated than the facade, except for the main entrance hall.
Police rooms The original plans for the building included a shooting range in the sub-basement, with rifle ranges measuring long. As built, the sub-basement included two shooting ranges, in addition to an elevator room, coal storage, ventilation equipment, and batteries for the telegraph equipment. There were 31 jail cells in the basement, each measuring across. There were also a storage room and safes in the basement's northern section, while the southern section had a detectives' lounge with bathrooms, showers, and lockers. The property clerk's office and telegraph storage room were also located in the basement, and the NYPD's printing staff worked on that level as well. The basements also had space for a garage, where the commissioner's vehicle could be stored, and which was accessed from the Broome Street porte-cochère. There are rumors that a secret tunnel connected 240 Centre Street with the neighboring Onieal's Grand Street Restaurant; no trace of the tunnel exists within the building itself, but a dead-end passage under Centre Market Place exists within the restaurant.
The first three stories were used almost exclusively as clerical offices. The Centre Street entrance led down to the basement and up to a lobby on the first floor. The double-height entrance lobby had marble columns and a coffered ceiling, and chandeliers were suspended from the ceiling's coffers. To the south or right of the lobby was a reception room, a conference room, the homicide bureau, and the organized crime bureau. To the north or left were the information bureau, boiler squad, and chief inspectors' office. There was also an exhibit of seized drug paraphernalia on the first story. A grand staircase ascended from the entrance hall to the top floor.
The second floor contained the commissioner's office and bedroom, as well as offices for the commissioner's staff. The commissioner's office was accessed by an octagonal room with round-arched mirrors. The office itself measured tall and across and had dark oak paneling on the walls. There was a wooden fireplace mantel and wooden pilasters on the walls, in addition to doorways topped by segmentally-arched pediments. The office overlooked a roof garden above the porte-cochère, and it had a private stair leading to a third-floor courtroom. There were also record rooms, filing rooms, a theatrical bureau, a repair bureau, and a complaint clerk's office on the second floor. The third floor had the chief clerk's room, record rooms, a courtroom, and pension bureau. The courtroom, which had round-arched windows and fluted pilasters on the walls, was subsequently subdivided. There was also a police library on the third floor, in addition to the deputy commissioner's office, which was decorated with a Greek Revival–style fireplace.