Manhattan Criminal Courts Building
60 Baxter Street | also 155 Leonard Street, 1 Hogan Place, 100 Centre Street | Civic Center | built 1939
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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.
- 1938
Construction begins on a $14 million Criminal Courts Building with federal Public Works Administration help
In 1938 work began on a new Manhattan criminal courthouse designed by Harvey Wiley Corbett and Charles B. Meyers. The Public Works Administration helped pay for the project, which cost $14 million. The granite and limestone building rises seventeen stories as four towers, its tall center tower stepping back in a style popular in the late 1920s and 1930s, and it was finished in 1941.
Source: livingnewdeal.org
- 1941
A 17-story courthouse opens with an 835-cell jail in its north wing
The city's new criminal courthouse at 100 Centre Street opened in 1941. Architects Harvey Wiley Corbett and Charles B. Meyers drew up the 17-story tower, and its northern wing held the Tombs, a jail with 835 cells. A critic at the time called the modernist skyscraper elusive and "uncommunicative." A 2018 Urban Omnibus essay said that charge fits the interior even better today, since its spaces and procedures can baffle visitors.
Source: urbanomnibus.net
- 1942
Frank Hogan becomes Manhattan district attorney and holds the job for more than three decades
Frank S. Hogan, an aide to Thomas E. Dewey since 1935, became New York County district attorney on January 1, 1942, after Dewey declined to run again. Tammany Hall, the Republicans and the American Labor Party all backed him, and he served until he resigned in December 1973. His office pursued racketeers, corrupt politicians and rigged TV quiz shows, and in 1964 prosecuted the comedian Lenny Bruce for obscenity. The DA's main address, One Hogan Place, is named in his honor.
“The street address of the main office of the New York County District Attorney is One Hogan Place in his honor.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1947
The film noir Kiss of Death shoots scenes in the Criminal Courts Building
In the spring of 1947 director Henry Hathaway's crew filmed Kiss of Death around New York, using real places as sets, among them the Criminal Courts Building at 100 Centre Street, the Chrysler Building and the Bronx House of Detention. The film follows a thief who turns informer, and it gave Richard Widmark his screen debut. Widmark won a Golden Globe as best new star, and the picture is now regarded as a noir classic.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1969
A bomb planted by Sam Melville goes off in the courthouse hearing the Panther 21 case
On November 12, 1969, a bomb exploded in the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse, the building then hearing the Panther 21 case. It was one of eight 1969 bombings of government and commercial buildings in the city by Sam Melville, who said he was protesting the Vietnam War. Hours later police arrested him as he placed dynamite in National Guard trucks outside the 69th Regiment Armory. Melville pleaded guilty in 1970 and was killed in the 1971 Attica uprising.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1970
Inmates seize a floor of the Tombs and hold five officers hostage for eight hours
On August 10, 1970, prisoners rioted in the Manhattan House of Detention, the Tombs, the jail tower at the north end of this complex. It held about 2,000 men in space built for 925. The rioters took over the entire ninth floor and held five officers hostage for eight hours, ending only when state officials promised to hear their grievances and to impose no punishment on them.
“…five officers were held hostage for eight hours, until state officials agreed to hear prisoner grievances and take no punitive action against the rioters…”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1974
The city decides to close the Tombs after a federal judge finds its conditions unconstitutional
Within a month of the 1970 riot, the Legal Aid Society sued on behalf of the pretrial detainees held in the Tombs, in a landmark class action. The litigation dragged on for years until federal judge Morris Lasker agreed that conditions were so poor as to be unconstitutional. On December 20, 1974, the city decided to close the jail and sent its last 400 inmates to Rikers Island. The tower was remodeled and reopened in 1983 as the South Tower of the Manhattan Detention Complex.
“The city decided to close the Tombs on December 20, 1974, after years of litigation…”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1983
Trading Places takes over two 12th-floor holding cells for filming
In late January 1983 the crew of Trading Places, the Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy comedy, took over two holding cells on the courthouse's 12th floor. Empty police lockups would normally have been used, but the mayor's office granted director John Landis's request because of the money the production was spending in the city, and the studio paid the costs. The Times reported that corrections staff, long late in delivering prisoners to court, still moved nearly 300 prisoners through that floor before 9 a.m. that day.
“…two holding cells on the 12th-floor of the New York Supreme Court building at 100 Centre Street were taken over for filming…”
Source: Wikipedia
- 2001
The jail complex is named for Bernard Kerik, then loses his name after his 2006 guilty plea
In December 2001 Mayor Rudolph Giuliani had the Manhattan Detention Complex, the remodeled 1941 jail tower plus a 1990 tower across White Street, named for Bernard B. Kerik. Kerik had run the city's Department of Correction from 1998 to 2000 before becoming police commissioner. After he pleaded guilty in 2006 to two misdemeanors committed as a city employee, Mayor Michael Bloomberg ordered his name taken off the jail.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2024
Demolition of the Tombs jail towers on White Street is completed to make way for a new jail
The city began tearing down the Tombs towers in 2023 to clear the site for a new borough-based jail meant to help replace Rikers Island. A federal judge refused to stop the removal of seven murals on the jail's facade, and demolition went ahead despite objections from neighbors. It was completed in August 2024, though a nearby senior residence and health clinic developed buckled floors and cracks during the work. A replacement jail is expected to be finished in 2032.
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- New York City Criminal CourtWikipedia
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