It was designed by Frederick Clarke Withers and Calvert Vaux, the latter the co-designer of Central Park. When built, the courthouse was part of a complex of buildings that included a prison and a market, which occupied the remainder of the trapezoidal block upon which it is located.

The building’s quirky, eccentric design has long been beloved by Villagers. So much so that they rallied mightily in the 1950s and ’60s to save the building from demolition and have it repurposed as a library, one of the signature preservation victories in New York after the tragic loss of the original Penn Station.

While the building’s architecture may have been beloved, the activities associated with it were not always so well-regarded. For decades it functioned as the courthouse for a district that included the city’s most crime-ridden neighborhood, the Tenderloin.

Its clocktower was used as a fire watch lookout, and its bells regularly rang to warn of nearby conflagrations. After World War II, it was converted to a police academy, and for years after that, it was left empty and used only by pigeons and rats.

But Villagers saved their true disdain for the building which occupied the remainder of the block adjacent to the courthouse beginning in 1929, the Women’s House of Detention. An Art Deco behemoth intended to embody a more enlightened approach to incarceration, it soon became known for its horrible conditions, the abuse suffered by detainees, and the loud and sometimes vulgar interactions between prisoners and passersby or visitors on the street outside (the jail had operable windows).

In 1973 the “House of D,” as it was sometimes called, was demolished to make way for the bucolic and pastoral Jefferson Market Garden, a stunningly green oasis footsteps from the hubbub of Sixth Avenue. Its verdant plantings are maintained by a volunteer community group, and while fenced off, the grounds are regularly open to the public for its enjoyment.

The Jefferson Market Library still functions as a library today and is a lively community space at the heart of the village.