Planned since 1888 for use as a Hall of Records and home to Surrogate's Court, it took eight years to build, from 1899 to 1907, and cost more than $7 million.

Surrogate Court completed as a fireproof building, designed to house the City's Records.&nbsp;

 The building was originally designed for use as a Hall of Records and this was its original name. The Surrogate's Court was one of the original tenants, with courtrooms, offices, and chambers on the 5th floor. The building was renamed the Surrogate's Courthouse in 1962. 

Exemplifying the ideals of the “City Beautiful” movement, this opulent Parisian courthouse was originally built as a storage facility for the city`s records. 58 sculptures on the exterior, by Philip Martiny and Henry Kirk Bush-Brown, depict various allegorical figures such as Law and Philosophy, or themed around Revolution, as well as prominent features of New York history.

The doorways are flanked by granite columns, each cast from a single granite slab and topped by modified composite capitals. This entrance was wainscoted entirely with Siena marble at the building's completion. There are side entrances at the center of the western elevation on Elk Street, from which there is a small flight of steps, as well as at the center of the eastern elevation on Centre Street. The Reade Street elevation contains a wheelchair-accessible entrance. 

The seventh story contains dormer windows with carved hoods, projecting from the mansard roof in all except the end bays.  

David Pietersen De Vries Dutch mariner, merchant and patroon who established colonies on Staten Island (1639) at at Tappan (1640). Caleb Heathcote, mayor of New York 1711-1714. De Witt Clinton, who was serving as mayor (and later governor) of New York City between 1803 and 1828. He was the driving force behind the Erie Canal.Abram Stevens Hewitt, mayor of New York 1887-1888, industrialist, active in the campaign against &ldquo;Boss&rdquo; Tweed in the 1870s. Philip Hone, mayor of New York 1825-1826.Peter Stuyvesant,&nbsp;last director-general of New Netherlands 1647-1664.Cadwallader David Colden, mayor of New York 1818-1821, district attorney, militia leader in the War of 1812, member of the State senate. James Duane, first mayor of New York 1784-1789, appointed after the British evacuation in 1783.

Maternity (woman holding a child) and Heritage (man instructing a squirming child), on either side of a triple window just above Hewitt and Hone. Spring, Summer, Winter, Autumn, caryatids flanking the round attic window Philosophy, a semi-reclining, older, bearded male figure on the far left of the round window, Poetry, a semi-reclining, younger male figure on the far right of the round window, with scrolls on his lap, holding a profile portrait head. Childhood, two children flanking an empty cartouche above the round window  

Surrogate's Court

Surrogate's Court - Hall of Records

 Architectural historian Gail Cornell talks about the history of the Surrogate's Courthouse on Chambers Street. 