City Hall Square, New York City

Text that accompanies the illustration above: «The view of City Hall Square, New York, which our artist has this week presented, is complete in every particular. It is taken from the steps of the Hall of Records, in the Park, and commands a view of Park Row, and St. Paul's Church, with a glimpse at Broadway and Barnum's Museum. The Church in the centre of the picture is the old Brick Church. On the left we have Nassau Street,−opening down as far as our publishing office, the offices of the New York Tribune and the Sunday Times, and French's and Tammany Hotels. We may observe that, after the closing of the old Tontine Coffee House, some years ago, the Tammany was the only Hotel in New York conducted on the European plan: Imitations enough have sprung up since. The Tammany is celebrated as the rendezvous of the democratic party, whose head-quarters are established there,−and there it was that the term Loco Foco originated. It is altogether a conspicuous building in the political history of the city.»

The City Hall Square was officially named on November 28, 1848, when the Common Council ordered that the open space fronting the Park, from Tryon Row to Ann street, to be designated with that name. In practice, the name was restricted to the area formed by the junction of Park Row, Nassau and Spruce streets, as shown in a map by William Perris, in 1852. This square was renamed Printing House Square, by common consent before March 1859.

The French's Hotel, represented on the left, at the northeast corner of Frankfort St. and City Hall Square (which bears a sign with that name), was erected by R. French and opened to the public on May 1, 1849. The hotel was demolished in 1888 to make way for the World Building, completed in 1890.

The two-story brick house in the rear of Brick Church was erected in 1832 for the Trustees of the Church, and extended in 1840. This facility was occupied, in 1846, by Baker and Scribner (later Charles Scribner and Co.) as church's tenant. The Church was demolished in 1857 and the Park Building and the Times Building were erected on the site.