Police Building

240 Centre Street | also 168 Grand Street, 401 Broome Street | Little Italy | built 1909

Open on the map13 entries

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

  1. 1838

    The Greek Revival Centre Market stands on the wedge where the police headquarters will rise

    The wedge-shaped site bounded by Grand Street, Centre Market Place, Centre Street and Broome Street had held Centre Market since 1817. By 1838 the market occupied a Greek Revival building by Thomas Thomas, who helped found the American Institute of Architects. Its form was an elongated block with a blind arcade at street level and a central pavilion crowned by a cupola. Hoppin & Koen later echoed its layout in the police headquarters that replaced it.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  2. 1903

    Hoppin & Koen design a headquarters meant to look like City Hall, not a police station

    In 1903 the architects Francis Hoppin and Terence Koen, who met as draftsmen at McKim, Mead & White, produced drawings for the new headquarters. Hoppin said plainly that it was not meant to resemble a police station. Its model was City Hall, which he considered the finest building on the island. The central pedimented pavilion with a dome, flanked by smaller end pavilions, also recalled the old Centre Market.

    “Hoppin stated quite frankly that the building was not intended to look like a police station, but was inspired by the dignity of City Hall…”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  3. 1905

    May

    Mayor McClellan lays the cornerstone for the new police headquarters

    Mayor George McClellan presides over the cornerstone ceremony for the new Centre Street police headquarters in May 1905, with a police band and mounted troops marking the occasion. City officials want a Beaux-Arts building that will "impress both officer and prisoner...with the majesty of the law." Construction continues for four more years before the domed headquarters opens in 1909.

    Source: Ephemeral New York

  4. 1907

    Commissioner Bingham refuses to move into the unfinished headquarters while subway work damages it

    In 1907 construction of the subway's Centre Street Loop kept contractors from finishing the main entrance. The builders, Gillespie Brothers, said the loop's contractors were harming the foundations, and Commissioner Theodore Bingham would not move in until that was repaired. Gillespie Brothers went bankrupt at the end of the year, and in July 1908 the Broome Street porte-cochere lost its arch and roof in a collapse.

    Source: Wikipedia

  5. 1909

    November 27

    The NYPD opens its domed headquarters on Centre Street

    After the five boroughs consolidated in 1898, the merged police department needed a larger headquarters. Designed by Hoppin & Koen and built from 1905 to 1909, the domed Beaux-Arts building formally opened on November 27, 1909, when its telegraph and telephone lines were switched on. Ten gun-store owners moved to nearby Centre Market Place after it opened.

    Source: Wikipedia

  6. 1909

    A promotional postcard advertises the new headquarters' 75 cells and a playroom for lost children

    A postcard from the period, described by Ephemeral New York, brags about the new headquarters: it lists a detectives bureau and a rogues gallery, plus a drill room, a gym and 75 cells in the basement. Its most unusual claim is a playroom for lost children. The blogger wondered whether lost children had been a real problem in 1909.

    Source: Ephemeral New York

  7. 1970

    June 9

    The Weathermen bomb the old police headquarters

    Members of the radical Weathermen group plant ten sticks of dynamite at the Centre Street police headquarters on June 9, 1970; Jane Alpert and William Ayers later claim responsibility, citing police repression. The NYPD continues operating from the building for three more years before relocating.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  8. 1973

    The NYPD leaves Centre Street for One Police Plaza

    The New York Police Department vacates its Centre Street headquarters in 1973, moving to a new building at One Police Plaza near the Brooklyn Bridge. Hoppin & Koen's Beaux-Arts building then sits empty for a decade. Developers eventually buy it from the city in 1983 for $4.2 million and convert it into cooperative apartments.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  9. 1977

    August

    The Little Italy Restoration Association leases the vacant headquarters for $1 a month

    In August 1977 the city agreed to lease the empty building to the Little Italy Restoration Association for a nominal $1 a month, to create a cultural center. The group renovated sixteen rooms in one wing, turned the roof terrace into a dance room and the commissioner's office into a bar. In November 1977 it held a fundraiser, the first major event there since the police left. The association could not raise enough money, and the city took the building back in April 1980.

    Source: Wikipedia

  10. 1978

    September 26

    The Landmarks Commission designates the old headquarters with seven speakers in favor and none opposed

    The commission had heard the case in 1966, 1970 and 1974 before it held the hearing of July 11, 1978. Seven witnesses spoke in favor of designation and nobody spoke against it. The designation report of September 26, 1978 calls the building among the city's most important examples of Edwardian Baroque and of Beaux-Arts design.

    “Seven witnesses spoke in favor of designation. There were no speakers in opposition to designation.”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  11. 1982

    The film Q is shot in the dome of the empty old police headquarters

    The 1982 film Q used the dome of the former headquarters as a location, years after the NYPD had moved out in 1973. A large nest built as a prop for the movie stayed in the dome for several years afterward. In those years the vacant building was also a target for thieves taking copper, wood, pipes and wires.

    “The 1982 movie Q was filmed in the building's dome; a large nest, a prop from that movie, remained in the dome for several years.”

    Source: Wikipedia

  12. 1984

    Developers discover the old police headquarters sticks out beyond its lot lines on every side

    In April 1984 the city sold the vacant police headquarters for $4.4 million to Fourth Jeffersonian Associates. Months of delay followed when the new owners' employees checked the official street maps and found the building extended past its lot boundaries in every direction. The Landmarks Commission would not let them alter it, and the Department of Buildings would not issue a permit unless it conformed to its lot, so the maps had to be redrawn first.

    Source: Wikipedia

  13. 1988

    The old police headquarters reopens as luxury apartments

    The police moved to One Police Plaza on October 16, 1973, and the city designated the building a landmark on September 26, 1978. Sold in April 1984 for $4.4 million, it was converted into the Police Building Apartments, completed in 1988, with 56 units selling for up to $2.5 million each. Early residents included the publisher Jason Epstein and the film producer Daniel Melnick.

    Source: Wikipedia

Further reading

Nearby

All 76 buildings with stories in Little Italy