BGuthrie Photos: NY -- NYC -- Federal Hall Natl Memorial (26 Wall Street) -- Exhibit: Alexander Hamilton: The Man Who Made America

NY -- NYC -- Federal Hall Natl Memorial (26 Wall Street) -- Exhibit: Alexander Hamilton: The Man Who Made America:

Bruce Guthrie Photos Home Page: [Click here] to go to Bruce Guthrie Photos home page.

Description of Pictures: Alexander Hamilton: The Man Who Made Modern America (New-York Historical Society, September 10, 2004-February 28, 2005) acquainted visitors with a statesman and visionary whose life inspired discussion and controversy and shaped the America we live in two hundred years after his death.

In the Introduction gallery, visitors met Alexander Hamilton and his contemporaries -- Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Adams, Burr. A five-minute film, running on split screens, presented these men -- allies, rivals, enemies -- voicing their opinions of the political and personal issues of Hamilton's life. The gallery was lined with portraits of the historic figures on screen.

In the next gallery, His Vision, visitors had a multimedia encounter with Hamilton's view of the world, and his plans for improving it. In the center of the gallery were thirteen cases with priceless authentic documents -- correspondence, the Constitution, records of the battlefield and the courtroom -- that flowed from his pen. Cases on the righthand wall displayed objects -- a musket, money, slave shackles -- illustrating his concepts. Screens on the lefthand wall showed a series of filmed vignettes of modern American life -- the bustling city, the free press, the modern military -- fading in and out with projections of Hamilton's words: a continuous alternation of eighteenth-century plans and twenty-first century fulfillment. John Trumbull's full-length portrait of Hamilton hung at the gallery's end, presiding over the whole.

In the third gallery, His Life, the visitor walked past a timeline of Hamilton's life. Graphics, text, and smaller historic objects -- a mourning ring with strands of Hamilton's hair -- illustrated his crowded life, from his illegitimate birth in the Caribbean, to his American success, to his violent death.

After passing through the museum store, and a tribute in the rotunda to the New-York Historical Society's Bicentennial, visitors reached the last gallery: The Duel. Two life-size bronze statues of Hamilton and his nemesis Aaron Burr stood as the duelists stood on July 11, 1804. Displayed between them were the pistols used by Hamilton and Burr that day.

The visitor's experience ended in the Theater, which featured a production of In Worlds Unknown, a thirty-minute play about Hamilton by Don Winslow commissioned especially for this exhibition.

Recognize anyone? If you recognize specific folks (or other stuff) and I haven't labeled them, please identify them for the world. Click the little pencil icon

underneath the file name (just above the picture). Spammers need not apply.

Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.

Accessing as Spider: The system has identified your IP as being a spider.
IP Address: 18.218.129.100 -- Domain: Amazon Technologies
I love well-behaved spiders! They are, in fact, how most people find my site. Unfortunately, my network has a limited bandwidth and pictures take up bandwidth. Spiders ask for lots and lots of pages and chew up lots and lots of bandwidth which slows things down considerably for regular folk. To counter this, you'll see all the text on the page but the images are being suppressed. Also, some system options like merges are being blocked for you.
Note: Permission is NOT granted for spiders, robots, etc to use the site for AI-generation purposes. I'm sure you're thrilled by your ability to make revenue from my work but there's nothing in that for my human users or for me.
If you are in fact human, please email me at guthrie.bruce@gmail.com and I can check if your designation was made in error. Given your number of hits, that's unlikely but what the hell.

Help? The Medium (Email) links are for screen viewing and emailing. You'll want bigger sizes for printing. [Click here for additional help]

Share: Facebook Twitter Digg
[1] FEDHAH_180824_001.JPG	[2] FEDHAH_180824_005.JPG	[3] FEDHAH_180824_010.JPG
[4] FEDHAH_180824_011.JPG	[5] FEDHAH_180824_014.JPG	[6] FEDHAH_180824_017.JPG
[7] FEDHAH_180824_020.JPG	[8] FEDHAH_180824_023.JPG	[9] FEDHAH_180824_026.JPG
[10] FEDHAH_180824_029.JPG	[11] FEDHAH_180824_033.JPG	[12] FEDHAH_180824_036.JPG
[13] FEDHAH_180824_037.JPG	[14] FEDHAH_180824_040.JPG	[15] FEDHAH_180824_045.JPG
[16] FEDHAH_180824_048.JPG	[17] FEDHAH_180824_051.JPG	[18] FEDHAH_180824_055.JPG
[19] FEDHAH_180824_058.JPG	[20] FEDHAH_180824_059.JPG	[21] FEDHAH_180824_067.JPG
[22] FEDHAH_180824_071.JPG	[23] FEDHAH_180824_074.JPG	[24] FEDHAH_180824_077.JPG
[25] FEDHAH_180824_080.JPG	[26] FEDHAH_180824_083.JPG	[27] FEDHAH_180824_086.JPG
[28] FEDHAH_180824_090.JPG	[29] FEDHAH_180824_093.JPG	[30] FEDHAH_180824_096.JPG
[31] FEDHAH_180824_099.JPG	[32] FEDHAH_180824_102.JPG	[33] FEDHAH_180824_104.JPG
[34] FEDHAH_180824_106.JPG	[35] FEDHAH_180824_110.JPG	[36] FEDHAH_180824_112.JPG
[37] FEDHAH_180824_116.JPG	[38] FEDHAH_180824_120.JPG	[39] FEDHAH_180824_123.JPG
[40] FEDHAH_180824_126.JPG	[41] FEDHAH_180824_129.JPG	[42] FEDHAH_180824_130.JPG
[43] FEDHAH_180824_131.JPG	[44] FEDHAH_180824_135.JPG	[45] FEDHAH_180824_138.JPG
[46] FEDHAH_180824_144.JPG	[47] FEDHAH_180824_146.JPG	[48] FEDHAH_180824_153.JPG
[49] FEDHAH_180824_156.JPG	[50] FEDHAH_180824_160.JPG	[51] FEDHAH_180824_162.JPG
[52] FEDHAH_180824_165.JPG	[53] FEDHAH_180824_167.JPG	[54] FEDHAH_180824_174.JPG
[55] FEDHAH_180824_178.JPG	[56] FEDHAH_180824_183.JPG

Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. FEDHAH_180824_005.JPG: Alexander Hamilton The Man Who Made Modern America Alexander Hamilton (1757-1804) is with us every day, in our wallets, on the $10 bill. But he is with us in another sense, for more than any other Founder, he foresaw the America we live in now. He shaped the financial, political, and legal systems of the young United States. His ideas on racial equality and economic diversity were so far ahead of their time that it took America decades to catch up with them. There is no inevitability in history; ideals alone -- even the ideals of the Founding Fathers -- do not guarantee success. Hamilton made the early republic work, and set the agenda for its future. We live in the world he made; here is what he did, and how he did it.
2. FEDHAH_180824_011.JPG: His World Hamilton's world teemed with active, opinionated men and women. Some were local celebrities in his small but bustling adopted home of New York City; some were national figures; and a few were world famous. Hamilton worked, argued, and fought with them; he loved, admired and hated them. Some crossed his path briefly. Others were fixed points in his life. Still others changed their relationships with him as politics or passion moved them. The portraits in this exhibition show the important people in his life, and in his psyche.
3. FEDHAH_180824_014.JPG: "He is enterprising, quick in his perceptions, and his judgment is intuitively great." -- George Washington to John Adams, September 25, 1798
4. FEDHAH_180824_017.JPG: The First Presidents Hamilton had dynamic relationships with the men who became the first four Presidents of the United States, from the supportive and steadying influence of Washington to the political and personal antipathy that evolved between Hamilton and Adams, Jefferson, and Madison.
5. FEDHAH_180824_020.JPG: Friends, Allies, and Adversaries Party politics and the passionate convictions about the direction the new nation should take affected Hamilton's personal relationships with many leading figures in his world, as he plunged into controversies, shifting alliances and friendships throughout his life.
6. FEDHAH_180824_023.JPG: "... the most restless, impatient, artful, indefatigable, and unprincipled intriguer in the United States, if not in the world." -- John Adams to James Lloyd, February 17, 1815
7. FEDHAH_180824_026.JPG: Immigrant Unlike most of the Founding Fathers, Alexander Hamilton was an immigrant. As a boy in the West Indies, he was introduced to shame (his parents were unmarried) and to the world of commerce (he went to work as a merchant's clerk when he was nine). Sent to New York to be educated, Hamilton was soon caught up in the American Revolution. He made the new nation his own, espousing its ideals and marrying a patriotic young woman. While his talents and ambition were perfectly suited to the burgeoning energy of New York, he envisioned a unified nation in a way that most of his contemporaries, rooted in home-state loyalties, could not.
8. FEDHAH_180824_033.JPG: Caribbean Roots Born on Nevis and raised in St. Croix, Hamilton grew up in the heart of the Caribbean sugar economy, which generated vast wealth from slave labor. Hamilton, recognizing the injustice, would become a leader in the anti-slavery movement in the United States.
9. FEDHAH_180824_037.JPG: An Ambitious Youth Sent to work at age nine to help support his mother and brother, and orphaned soon after, Hamilton was a merchant's clerk in St. Croix. His intelligence and determination to make something of himself inspired local benefactors to send him to New York to be educated.
10. FEDHAH_180824_040.JPG: View of Christiansted from the Sea, 1825 This view of St. Croix's largest town, complete with fort, church, and company docks, shows the commercially active port where Hamilton lived and worked as a boy.
11. FEDHAH_180824_045.JPG: A New Life in New York Hamilton's talents and ambition were perfectly suited to New York City, the second-largest town in the thirteen colonies, and growing fast. He enrolled in King's College (later Columbia College), but his studies were cut short by the American Revolution.
12. FEDHAH_180824_048.JPG: "My Ambition is so prevalent that I contemn the grov'ling condition of a Clerk." -- Alexander Hamilton, age 12, to Edward Stevens, November 11, 1769
13. FEDHAH_180824_051.JPG: Soldier Hamilton spent much of his life in military uniform. From 1776 to 1781, in the Revolutionary War, he fought in seven major battles, as a captain of artillery, a colonel on George Washington's staff, and a commander of light infantry. In 1798-99, when war with France loomed, he re-entered the military as a senior officer.
14. FEDHAH_180824_055.JPG: Hamilton and Washington In March 1777 Hamilton was promoted to colonel and appointed to George Washington's staff. He performed essential tasks, saw firsthand the dire consequences of Congress's inability to pay for adequate supplies or troops, and forged, with his Commander in Chief, the most important political bond of his life. But though Hamilton's work on Washington's staff was stimulating and important, it was also confining. He longed to return to the battlefield to win still more glory. He did so in 1781, and fought bravely at the war's climactic Battle of Yorktown. In 1783 the Revolution ended in victory -- and a load of debt for the newly independent nation.
15. FEDHAH_180824_058.JPG: British-made musket with bayonet, 1765-1775 This "Brown Bess" musket was standard for British infantry. Americans, who manufactured only a fraction of their own weapons, relied on captured pieces, or French supplies. Hamilton lamented the dependence on foreign arms.
16. FEDHAH_180824_059.JPG: The American Revolution When Hamilton arrived in New York, the thirteen colonies had been protesting British taxes and commercial regulations for years. New York City was a hotbed of contending political factions, pitting Patriots against pro-British Loyalists. While still a student at King's College (now Columbia), Hamilton took up the Patriots' cause, writing his first political article in 1774 (he signed himself "A Friend to America").
17. FEDHAH_180824_067.JPG: Defending a New Nation In the 1790s, the French Revolution ignited a new series of world wars. George Washington and Hamilton desperately wanted to keep the unprepared nation out of the conflict, as Washington wrote (with Hamilton's help) in his Farewell Address: "Why... entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition?" But when war against Revolutionary France appeared inevitable, the two veterans joined forces once again to build an effective army.
18. FEDHAH_180824_071.JPG: "'Tis our true policy to steer clear of permanent Alliances, with any part of the foreign world." -- George Washington, Farewell Address, written with help of Hamilton, September 19, 1796
19. FEDHAH_180824_077.JPG: Lawmaker Hamilton attended the Constitutional Convention in 1787, and helped persuade a skeptical public to ratify the Constitution by launching the Federalist Papers, a series of newspaper pieces. The first Federalist asked for laws based on "reflection and choice," not "accident and force." In his career as a lawyer, Hamilton advocated principles of constitutional interpretation such as judicial review -- a controversial doctrine then and now.
20. FEDHAH_180824_080.JPG: The U.S. Constitution Hamilton's wartime experience had shown him the need for a stronger central government. At the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787, Hamilton and other like-minded delegates produced a sturdy but flexible governmental structure. During 1787 and 1788, Hamilton led the campaign to ratify it.
21. FEDHAH_180824_083.JPG: "The vigor of government is essential to the security of liberty." -- Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist, No. 1, October 1787
22. FEDHAH_180824_086.JPG: The Federalist: A Collection of Essays Written in favour of the new Constitution as agreed upon by the Federal Convention, September 17, 1787 Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay To take effect, the Constitution had to be ratified by nine states. Hamilton initially planned 25 pro-Constitution essays, written by himself, James Madison, and John Jay, to appear anonymously in New York newspapers. Eventually 85 essays appeared (Hamilton wrote 51, Madison 29, and Jay 5). Historians credit these essays with turning the tide in favor of ratification in New York and elsewhere. In this Federalist, first of the series, Hamilton argues that "[n]othing less than the existence of the UNION... the fate of an empire" is at stake.
23. FEDHAH_180824_090.JPG: Signing of the Constitution, undated Thomas Pritchard Rossiter (1817-1871) Among the 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention depicted here are: Washington, presiding; Benjamin Franklin, beside wooden-legged Gouverneur Morris; rose-clad Hamilton, to Franklin's left; James Madison, beside Hamilton. The man touching Hamilton's shoulder may be Rufus King.
24. FEDHAH_180824_093.JPG: Hamilton the Lawyer Hamilton worked as a lawyer, off and on, from the end of the Revolution until the last year of his life. He earned a living, sometimes made himself unpopular, and forged enduring principles of constitutional law.
25. FEDHAH_180824_096.JPG: "A nation, despicable by its weakness, forfeits even the privilege of being neutral." -- Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist, No. 11, November 1787
26. FEDHAH_180824_104.JPG: Economist Building on his early commercial experience, Hamilton became a brilliant, self-taught economist. America needed him: its load of war debt was crushing. Appointed by President Washington to be the first Treasury Secretary in 1789, Hamilton solved the nation's debt problem and established a modern system of credit, over the bitter objections of less progressive opponents. By the time he retired in 1795, the United States, unlike most emerging nations, was fiscally sound, and poised to become a major financial power.
27. FEDHAH_180824_106.JPG: Financial Architect The burgeoning economist, his commercial acumen heightened by the financial troubles he saw during the Revolution, read widely on international economics and exchanged ideas with leaders at home and abroad.
28. FEDHAH_180824_110.JPG: "The want of money makes us want everything else." -- Alexander Hamilton to the Marquis de Barb�-Marbois, 1780
29. FEDHAH_180824_112.JPG: First Treasury Secretary In 1790, Treasury Secretary Hamilton presented Congress the Report on Public Credit and the Report on a National Bank. He found a way to pay off America's lingering war debts (including assumption by the federal government of the states' debts), and bring the nation into the modern financial era.
30. FEDHAH_180824_116.JPG: Tontine Coffee House Francis Guy (1760-1820) Oil on linen, c. 1800 The hub of business in Hamilton's New York was the bustling Tontine Coffee House, at the northwest corner of Wall and Water Streets. There, merchants posted prices, struck deals, and swapped gossip
31. FEDHAH_180824_120.JPG: A Strong National Currency In their first years of independence, Americans conducted business with a bewildering array of coins and currencies. In his Report on the Mint (1791), Hamilton insisted on "the uniform preservation of the intrinsic value of the money unit." He resolved the chaos into a single strong currency.
32. FEDHAH_180824_123.JPG: "I have found the most perfect system ever formed.... Hamilton made no blunders, committed no frauds. He did nothing wrong." -- Albert Gallatin to Thomas Jefferson
33. FEDHAH_180824_129.JPG: Futurist Alexander Hamilton, both intensely idealistic and acutely practical, foresaw aspects of American life that lay far in the future. Though he devoted years to business and battle, his best work was the thinking, writing, and planning he did for his adopted nation. The America Hamilton came to was a land of farms, many of them worked by slaves. Hamilton had a different vision. He foresaw a diverse economy, offering opportunity for the full variety of human talents. He respected the faculties of blacks, and worked to end slavery. These visions, expressed during his life, would not be fulfilled until long after his death.
34. FEDHAH_180824_131.JPG: A Spirit of Enterprise Unlike Jefferson, who idealized agrarian society, Hamilton argued that manufacturing and commerce were also integral to modern economies. Hamilton believed that a diverse economy would make the nation wealthy and fulfill the potential of its citizens.
35. FEDHAH_180824_135.JPG: "When all the different kinds of industry obtain in a community, each individual can find his proper element, and can call into activity the whole vigor of his nature." -- Alexander Hamilton, "Report on the Subject of Manufactures", December 5, 1791
36. FEDHAH_180824_138.JPG: A Vision of Equality In Hamilton's time, much of the labor of America, in the North as well as the South, was done by slaves. Hamilton wanted to end this pernicious and degrading institution. Slavery, he wrote as early as 1774, "relaxes the sinews of industry, clips the wings of commerce, and introduces misery and indigence in every shape." In 1785 he helped found the New York Manumission Society.
37. FEDHAH_180824_144.JPG: Passaic Falls, Spring Thomas W. Whitley (active 1835-1863) Oil on panel, c. 1839 Tourists went to the falls of the Passaic for the view. Hamilton saw a source of industrial power. In 1791, he helped found the Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures, which planned to make Paterson, New Jersey, an industrial city, producing everything from hats to iron wire.
38. FEDHAH_180824_146.JPG: Education for All Although he had little formal schooling, Hamilton recognized the importance of education. He supported education institutions serving people of all ages and from all walks of life -- including African Americans and Native Americans.
39. FEDHAH_180824_153.JPG: "Who talk most about liberty and equality?... Is it not those who hold the bill of rights in one hand and a whip for affrighted slaves in the other?" -- Alexander Hamilton, February 23, 1791
40. FEDHAH_180824_160.JPG: The Duel Affairs of honor -- disputes between gentlemen that sometimes culminated in duels -- were common in late-18th-century America. One signer of the Declaration of Independence and two signers of the Constitution were killed in duels. Men fought duels when they felt their honor had been impugned, and though dueling was illegal, duelists were not prosecuted, since juries would not convict them. Dueling was polite, well-regulated, unjust and barbaric. Hamilton was a principal in seven affairs of honor in his life. The one that ended in a duel, and ended his life, was fought with fellow lawyer and New Yorker, Vice President Aaron Burr.
41. FEDHAH_180824_162.JPG: Hamilton vs. Burr In 1804 the long rivalry between Hamilton and Burr reached a climax. The two men knew each other professionally and socially, and had worked together in the past, but Hamilton considered Burr ambitious and unprincipled -- "an embryo Caesar." Hamilton, who had helped keep Burr out of the White House in 1800, opposed his latest campaign, to be governor of New York. Hamilton, finally, knew that northern Federalists, maddened by the popularity of President Jefferson, were plotting secession -- and that Burr was in touch with them. Then, in April 1804, an inflammatory article appeared in an Albany newspaper.
42. FEDHAH_180824_165.JPG: "I have resolved... to reserve and throw away my first fire." -- Alexander Hamilton, July 10, 1804
43. FEDHAH_180824_167.JPG: July 11, 1804 Hamilton and Burr met at Weehawken, New Jersey, shortly after dawn. The pistols, which belonged to John Church, Elizabeth Hamilton's brother-in-law, had been used in Hamilton's son Philip's fatal duel three years earlier. Following protocol, the gentlemen stood twenty paces apart, and fired at the command, "Present." Hamilton's shot went high and wide. Burr's pierced Hamilton's abdomen and lodged in his spine. Hamilton was rowed to Greenwich Village, where he died the following day.
44. FEDHAH_180824_174.JPG: Aaron Burr (1756-1836) John Vanderlyn (1775-1852) Oil on canvas, 1802 Alexander Hamilton (1757-1804) John Trumbull (1756-1843) Oil on canvas, after 1804
45. FEDHAH_180824_183.JPG: Epilogue Hamilton overcame heavy odds. He was an immigrant, born in poverty and shame. To put his projects into effect, he had to persuade or defy great but often uncomprehending colleagues -- George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison. He was hampered by scandal and controversy, some of it his own fault. He was killed, when he was only 47, in a duel. But through a combination of intelligence, hard work, and high principle, he served his adopted country brilliantly. We live in the world he made.
AAA "Gem": AAA considers this location to be a "must see" point of interest. To see pictures of other areas that AAA considers to be Gems, click here.
Wikipedia Description: Federal Hall
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Federal Hall, once located at 26 Wall Street in New York City, was the first capitol of the United States. The building was demolished in the 19th century and replaced by the current structure, the first United States Customs House. The building is now operated by the National Park Service as the Federal Hall National Memorial, a museum that commemorates the earlier structure.

Historic building:

The original structure on the site was built as New York's City Hall in 1700. 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 the freedom of the press as it was later defined in the Bill of Rights.

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."

The building was remodelled and enlarged following the American Revolution under the direction of Pierre Charles L'Enfant, who was later selected by President Washington to design the capital city on the Potomac. This was the first example of Federal Style architecture in the United States. It was renamed Federal Hall when it became the first Capitol of the United States under the Constitution in 1789, and was the second Capitol of the United States (after the Maryland State House) since independence and union under the Articles of Confederation. The first United States Congress met there on March 4, 1789, to establish the new federal government, and the first thing they did was count the votes that elected George Washington as the first President of the United States. He was inaugurated in front 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. First among these were adoption of the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution; not long after the new federal Constitution was ratified, many Americans began to express their concern for its limited protection of individual liberties. Twelve amendments to the Constitution were initially drafted, ten were agreed upon, and on September 25, 1789, the Bill of Rights was adopted in Federal Hall, establishing the freedoms claimed by the Stamp Act Congress on the same site 24 years earlier. Also, the Judiciary Act of 1789 was enacted in the building which set up the United States Court System, which is still in use today. In addition, The Northwest Ordinance was adopted at Federal Hall which set up what would later become the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin, but more fundamentally it prohibited slavery in these future states.

In 1809, several city notables, including Clement Clarke Moore, were convened there by the New-York Historical Society to declare Sancte Claus the Patron Saint of Nieuw Amsterdam, New York City's previous name under Dutch rule. Sancte Claus, today's Santa Claus, is the English version of the Dutch Christmas hero Sinter Claus or Saint Nicholas who helped young people in Asia Minor. These notables, including the poet of the famous early Christmas poem, 'A Visit From St. Nicholas,' assembled to create a more unified and peaceful way to celebrate Christmas in a rapidly growing and diverse town.

In 1812 the old New York City Hall, known as Federal Hall, was torn down for $400 worth of scrap. Part of the original railing and balcony floor where Washington was inaugurated are on display in the monument.

Current structure:

In 1790, the United States capital was moved to Philadelphia and what had been Federal Hall once again housed New York City government until 1812, when the building was razed. The current structure, one of the best surviving examples of classical architecture in New York, was built as the country's first Customs House, opening in 1842, and later served as one of six United States Sub-Treasury locations and a Federal Reserve Bank.

Two prominent American ideals are reflected in the building's architecture: The Doric columns of the fa�ade, designed by Ithiel Town and Alexander Jackson Davis, resemble those of the Parthenon and serve as a tribute to Greek democracy; the domed ceiling inside, designed by John Frazee, echoes the Pantheon and the economic might of the Romans.

The current structure is often overshadowed among downtown landmarks by the New York Stock Exchange, which is located diagonally across Wall and Nassau Streets, but the site is one of the most important in the history of the United States and, particularly, the foundation of the United States Government and its democratic institutions. The current building is well-known for the bronze statue of George Washington on its front steps, marking the site where he was inaugurated as US President in the former structure.

In 1920, a bomb was detonated across the street from Federal Hall at 23 Wall Street, in what became known as the Wall Street bombing. 38 people were killed and 400 injured, and 23 Wall was visibly damaged, but Federal Hall received no damage. A famous photograph of the event shows the destruction and effects of the bombing, but also shows the statue of Washington standing stoically in the face of chaos.

Federal Hall National Memorial:

The building was designated as Federal Hall Memorial National Historic Site on May 26, 1939, and redesignated a national memorial on August 11, 1955. As with all historic areas administered by the National Park Service, the memorial was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 15, 1966.

The National Park Services operates Federal Hall as a museum. The museum closed on December 3, 2004 for extensive renovations and reopened in the fall of 2006. Normally its exhibit galleries are open free to the public daily, except national holidays, and guided tours of the site are offered throughout the day. Exhibits include:

* George Washington’s Inauguration Gallery - Including the Bible used to swear his oath of office.
* Freedom of the Press - The imprisonment and trial of John Peter Zenger.
* Journey to Federal Hall - An 8-minute video about the history of Federal Hall.

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 as a symbolic show of support for the City, still recovering from the September 11, 2001 attacks. Just four blocks from Ground Zero, the meeting was the first by Congress in New York since 1790.

In 2006, Federal Hall opened after a brief closure and a $16 million renovation, mostly to its foundation, after cracks threatening the structure were greatly aggravated by the collapse of the World Trade Center Twin Towers.

As a national monument, the site is open free to the public from 9-5 on week days. It has tourist information about the New York Harbor Area's Federal monuments and parks, and a New York City tourism information center. The gift shop has colonial and early American items for sale.

Cultural references:

* Federal Hall has appeared in several movies as well as Rage Against the Machine's music video for Sleep Now in the Fire featuring Michael Moore.
* In the video game Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, the final scene of the game takes place at Federal Hall, after Arsenal Gear crashes through Manhattan and stops at Federal Hall, damaging the right side of the structure.
Bigger photos? To save server space, the full-sized versions of these images have either not been loaded to the server or have been removed from the server. (Only some pages are loaded with full-sized images and those usually get removed after three months.) I still have them though. If you want me to email them to you, please send an email to guthrie.bruce@gmail.com and I can email them to you, or, depending on the number of images, just repost the page again will the full-sized images.
Connection Not Secure messages? Those warnings you get from your browser about this site not having secure connections worry some people. This means this site does not have SSL installed (the link is http:, not https:). That's bad if you're entering credit card numbers, passwords, or other personal information. But this site doesn't collect any personal information so SSL is not necessary. Life's good!
Photo Contact: [Email Bruce Guthrie].