City Hall Post Office and Courthouse, May 25, 1938.

Construction on the City Hall Post Office and Courthouse — nicknamed “Mullett’s monstrosity” for architect Alfred B. Mullett — began in 1869, but was not completed until 1880, by which time the building’s elaborate French Second Empire design had fallen out of fashion.

By the early 20th century, calls for the reviled building’s demolition were frequent. It was finally torn down in 1938, about one month after Berenice Abbott took this photograph.