Federal Hall

Federal Hall was the first capitol building of the United States established under the Constitution. Serving as the meeting place of the First United States Congress and the site of George Washington's first presidential inauguration, the building was located on Wall Street facing the northern end of Broad Street in Lower Manhattan, New York City, from 1703 to 1812. The site is occupied by the Federal Hall National Memorial, a Greek Revival–style building completed in 1842 as the New York Custom House. The National Park Service now operates the building as a national memorial commemorating the historic events that occurred at Federal Hall.

The original structure on the site was built from 1699 to 1703 as New York's second city hall. The building hosted the 1765 Stamp Act Congress, before the American Revolution. After the United States became an independent nation, it served as the meeting place for the Congress of the Confederation, the nation's first central government under the Articles of Confederation, from 1785 to 1789, and the building was expanded and updated. With the establishment of the United States federal government in 1789, it hosted the 1st Congress and the inauguration of George Washington as the nation's first president. It was demolished in 1812.

The current structure, designed by Ithiel Town and Alexander Jackson Davis, was built as New York's U.S. Custom House, before serving as a Subtreasury building from 1862 to 1925. The Subtreasury building continued to be used as a governmental office building for a decade, and it opened as a public memorial in 1940. The building is constructed of Tuckahoe marble. Its architectural features include a colonnade of Doric columns, in addition to a domed rotunda designed by the sculptor John Frazee. In front of the building is a large statue of George Washington by John Quincy Adams Ward. The facade and part of the interior are New York City designated landmarks, and the building is also a contributing property to the Wall Street Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

In the 17th century, the area north of Wall Street was occupied by the farm of a man named John Damen. Damen sold the land in 1685 to captain John Knight, an officer of Thomas Dongan's administration. Knight resold the land to Dongan, who resold it in 1689 to Abraham de Peyster and Nicholas Bayard. Both de Peyster and Bayard served as mayors of New York.

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. This structure had been designed by James Evetts to replace Stadt Huys, the city's first administrative center. It was two stories high, with wings extending west and east from a recessed central section. The stones from Wall Street's old fortifications were used for City Hall. Also housed at City Hall was a public library (which had 1,642 volumes by the year 1730), as well as a firehouse with two fire engines imported from London. The upper stories were used as a debtors' prison.

In 1735, John Peter Zenger, a 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, served as one of the bases for freedom of the press as it was later defined in the Bill of Rights.

City Hall was first remodeled in 1765, with the addition of a third story. That October, delegates from nine of the Thirteen 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 Sons of Liberty briefly took over the building from the British during the American Revolutionary War in 1775, seizing British soldiers' munitions. The United States Declaration of Independence was read at City Hall on July 18, 1776, shortly after the country declared independence from Britain. After the war, City Hall became a meeting place for the Continental Congress.

After the American Revolution, City Hall was home to the Congress of the Confederation of the United States under the Articles of Confederation. The first meeting of the Confederation Congress took place at City Hall on April 13, 1784.