James L. Watson U.S. Court of International Trade Building

1 Federal Plaza | also 49 Duane Street, 38 Lafayette Street | Civic Center | built 1968

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The lot about 1940
About 1940. Via 1940s.nyc
The lot about 1985
About 1985. Via 80s.nyc

The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.

Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

  1. 1963

    Construction begins on the Customs Court and a 41-story tower despite objections from local architects

    The government approved the design for a 41-story federal office tower beside an 8-story Customs Court building in 1960, and construction started in 1963. Local architects protested that the complex would crowd Foley Square and upset plans for the Civic Center. Three firms working together, Alfred Easton Poor, Kahn & Jacobs and Eggers & Higgins, designed it. The work went ahead and was finished in 1967.

    Source: gsa.gov

  2. 1967

    The eight-story court building is a black-glass cube linked to the Javits tower by a bridge

    The eight-story court building is a sleek cube sheathed in black glass, crossed at two points by granite buttresses that stick out past the glass walls and flat roof. Like the tower beside it, it stands on piers with the street-level entrance recessed behind an arcade. Inside, the public spaces have terrazzo floors, the courtrooms have marble and wood-paneled walls, and the elevator lobbies are covered in mosaic tile. A four-story pedestrian bridge links it to the Javits building.

    Source: gsa.gov

  3. 1967

    A lobby mosaic by Seymour Fogel and a Theodore Roszak eagle give the courthouse its art

    When the federal complex was built, the General Services Administration paid for no public art on the plaza, citing changing agency policies and runaway inflation. Inside the court building, though, two works remain. A colorful geometric mosaic called Metropolis, made by Seymour Fogel in 1967, decorates the lobby, and Theodore Roszak's Eagle/Justice Above All Else, from 1970, stands in one of the courtrooms.

    Source: gsa.gov

  4. 1980

    The Customs Courts Act of 1980 turns the Customs Court into the Court of International Trade

    The court housed here traces back to the Board of General Appraisers, created by Congress in 1890. Congress replaced the Board with the U.S. Customs Court in 1926 and made it a full federal court in 1956. The Customs Courts Act of 1980 then renamed it the Court of International Trade, widened its powers over trade disputes and gave its judges life tenure. The court sits in Lower Manhattan, in this building.

    “The Customs Courts Act of 1980 established the United States Court of International Trade in its current form…”

    Source: Wikipedia

  5. 2003

    The courthouse is renamed for Judge James L. Watson, a Harlem-born war veteran and former state senator

    The United States Court of International Trade Building at 1 Federal Plaza received the name of James L. Watson in 2003, when the courthouse was renamed for him. Watson, born in Harlem in 1922, fought in Italy during his Army service in World War II and received the Purple Heart. After serving in the state senate until 1963 and then on the city's Civil Court, he joined the Customs Court in 1966 on President Lyndon Johnson's nomination. Sitting by assignment around the country, he was the first Black judge to lead a federal court anywhere in the Deep South.

    Source: Wikipedia

  6. 2025

    May 28

    A three-judge panel of the Court of International Trade rules Trump's emergency-powers tariffs unlawful

    On May 28, 2025, three judges of the Court of International Trade decided V.O.S. Selections v. United States, finding that President Trump exceeded his authority when he used the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act as the basis for sweeping tariffs under his Liberation Day trade policy. The judges held that the law gives presidents no power to levy such broad import taxes. They also struck down separate tariffs on China, Mexico and Canada that had been justified as responses to drug trafficking and illegal immigration.

    Source: Wikipedia

Further reading

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All 64 buildings with stories in Civic Center