Jefferson Market Library

The Jefferson Market Library is defined by its ornate, hundred-foot-tall clock tower that rises from a building of red brick and yellow sandstone. Designed by architects Frederick Clarke Withers and Calvert Vaux, the structure occupies a prominent triangular plot in Greenwich Village. Completed in eighteen seventy-seven, the building originally functioned as the Third Judicial District Courthouse, serving the city's lively Tenderloin district. Its Victorian Gothic design includes steep roofs, gables, and stained-glass windows that were meant to evoke the feeling of a European cathedral rather than a hall of justice.