Jefferson Market Courthouse, ca. 1975.

The Third Judicial District Courthouse was erected between 1874-1877 on a site adjacent to Jefferson Market. The building, which came to be known as the Jefferson Market Courthouse, was designed by architect Frederick Clarke Withers, the partner of Calvert Vaux. Withers’s ambitious design incorporated High Victorian and Ruskinian Gothic elements, including a 100-foot clock tower, eastern-facing gable, parapets, and countless intricate facade details. A matching prison, also designed by Withers, was built on the same triangular block.

In 1927, the Jefferson Market Prison was demolished, ahead of the construction of the New York Women’s House of Detention. The courthouse survived that development, but its long-term future was imperiled. When redistricting shifted court operations to another location 1945, demolition seemed likely. In the meantime, the Police Academy used the structure as a training facility.

In the late 1950s, a group of local residents started a campaign to convert the former courthouse into a library — first disguised as an effort to restart the stalled clock on its tower. The scheme was approved in 1961, and the Jefferson Market Library opened to the public in 1967.