Federal Hall

The original structure on the site was built as New York's second City Hall from 1699 to 1703, on Wall Street, in what is today the Financial District of Lower Manhattan.[7] In 1735, John Peter Zenger, an American newspaper publisher, was arrested for committing libel against the British royal governor and was imprisoned and tried there. His acquittal on the grounds that the material he had printed was true established freedom of the press as it was later defined in the Bill of Rights.[8]

Archibald Robertson's View up Wall Street with City Hall (Federal Hall) and Trinity Church, New York City, from around 1798

In October 1765, delegates from nine of the 13 colonies met as the Stamp Act Congress in response to the levying of the Stamp Act by the Parliament of Great Britain. Drawn together for the first time in organized opposition to British policy, the attendees drafted a message to King George III, the House of Lords, and the House of Commons, claiming entitlement to the same rights as the residents of Britain and protesting the colonies' "taxation without representation".

After the American Revolution, the City Hall served as the meeting place for the Congress of the Confederation of the United States under the Articles of Confederation from 1785 until 1789. Acts adopted here included the Northwest Ordinance, which set up what would later become the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin, but more fundamentally prohibited slavery in these future states.

In 1788, the building was remodeled and enlarged under the direction of Pierre Charles L'Enfant,[9] who was later selected by President George Washington to design the capital city on the Potomac River. This was the first example of Federal Style architecture in the United States.

The building was renamed Federal Hall when it became the nation’s first seat of government under the Constitution in 1789. The 1st Congress met there beginning on March 4, 1789, and George Washington was inaugurated as the first President of the United States on the balcony of the building on April 30, 1789.

Many of the most important legislative actions in the United States occurred with the 1st Congress at Federal Hall. Foremost was the proposal and initial ratification of the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution; twelve amendments to the Constitution were initially drafted (ten were later adopted), and on September 25, 1789, the United States Bill of Rights was proposed in Federal Hall, establishing the freedoms claimed by the Stamp Act Congress on the same site 24 years earlier. In 1992 an eleventh of the initial 12 proposed amendments was adopted as the 27th Amendment. Also, the Judiciary Act of 1789 was enacted in the building, which set up the United States federal court system that is still in use today.

In 1790, the United States capital was moved to Philadelphia, and what had been Federal Hall once again housed the government of New York City until 1812, when the building was razed with the opening of the current New York City Hall.[10][11] Part of the original railing and balcony floor where Washington was inaugurated are on display in the memorial.[12] Nassau Street, which historically curved around City Hall, was straightened after the demolition of the second City Hall.[6]

George Washington, 1882, by John Quincy Adams Ward, in front of Federal Hall National Memorial

The current structure, one of the best surviving examples of Greek Revival architecture in New York, was built as the first purpose-built U.S. Custom House for the Port of New York.[5] The Custom House building took more than a decade to complete and opened in 1842.

By 1861, the structure had become too small to accommodate all of the customs duties of the U.S. Custom House for the Port of New York.[13] The custom house decided to move one block to 55 Wall Street, then occupied by the Merchants' Exchange.[14] The federal government of the United States signed a lease with the Merchants' Exchange in February 1862, intending to move into the building that May.[15] The custom house moved to 55 Wall Street starting in August 1862, and 26 Wall Street was transformed into a building for the United States Sub-Treasury.[16][17] Millions of dollars of gold and silver were kept in the basement vaults until the Federal Reserve Bank replaced the Sub-Treasury system in 1920. At its peak, the Sub-Treasury building held seventy percent of the federal government's money.[11]

In 1882, John Quincy Adams Ward‘s bronze statue of George Washington was put up on the Sub-Treasury’s ceremonial front steps, “marking the exact height Washington stood when taking the oath of office on the balcony” of the eighteenth-century edifice, overlooking the crowds filling Broad Street up to Wall Street.[18]

In the Wall Street bombing of 1920, Federal Hall received no damage

In the Wall Street bombing of 1920, a bomb was detonated across from Federal Hall at 23 Wall Street, in what became known as The Corner. Thirty-eight people were killed and 400 injured, and 23 Wall Street was visibly damaged, but Federal Hall received no damage.

By the late 1930s, the Sub-Treasury building was planned to be torn down. Consequently, a group called Federal Hall Memorial Associates was formed in 1939, raising money to prevent the building's demolition.[11] The building was designated as Federal Hall Memorial National Historic Site on May 26, 1939.[19] After several months of negotiations, Federal Hall Memorial Associates was allowed to operate the interior as a museum.[20][21]

Federal Hall was re-designated a national memorial on August 11, 1955, and the National Park Service started to administer the national memorial. The following year, the federal government drafted a $1.621 million plan for restoration of Federal Hall. At the time, the interior had become dilapidated.[22] The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 15, 1966. Federal Hall was designated a landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission on December 21, 1965.[23] The building opened to the public in 1972 as a museum.[11]

During the mid-1980s, Richard Jenrette—the chairman of banking house Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, which was headquartered nearby—started soliciting $500,000 in private donations to renovate Federal Hall, in conjunction with Federal Hall Memorial Associates.[24] Although the group planned to make the rotunda into a reception area with contemporary furnishings, by 1985, only $73.000 had been raised and no contemporary furnishings had been acquired.[25] Federal officials announced in 1986 that Federal Hall would be renovated; the spaces would be cleaned and painted, and mechanical systems would be replaced. As part of the project, an exhibit to the Constitution of the United States would be opened.[26]

Congress convenes for a special session at Federal Hall National Memorial on September 6, 2002

Federal Hall was closed for one month following the September 11, 2001, attacks, which caused the nearby collapse of the World Trade Center's Twin Towers.[27] On September 6, 2002, approximately 300 members of the United States Congress traveled from Washington, D.C. to New York to convene in Federal Hall National Memorial as a symbolic show of support for the city, still recovering from the September 11 attacks. The meeting was the first by Congress in New York since 1790.[10]

The site closed on December 3, 2004, for an extensive $16 million renovation, mostly to its foundation, after cracks threatening the structure were greatly aggravated by the collapse of the World Trade Center. In 2006, Federal Hall National Memorial reopened.[28] It was reported on June 8, 2008, that New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and ABC News invited 2008 United States presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama to a town hall forum at Federal Hall.[29] Both candidates declined the offer "because they do not want it limited to one television network."[30]