photo by Beyond My Ken
On April 25, 1908, the New-York Tribune reported on the first "organization meeting" of the New York County Lawyers' Association, which had just been incorporated. The article stressed that it "will in no sense be competitive with the Bar Association," and explained, "One of the main objects of the association will be to add to the influence of the bar in this city in the making of laws and the administration of justice."
Three months later, on July 29, the newspaper reported that the group had signed a lease for part of the 26th floor of the City Investing Building "for a term of years." Astoundingly, the newspaper mentioned, "The association has a membership of about four thousand."
In 1929, the New York County Lawyers' Association acquired the Real Estate Showroom property at 14 Vesey Street, owned by the Astor estate. The group commissioned Cass Gilbert to design a permanent headquarters on the site. The esteemed architect had embellished his Gothic inspired Woolworth Building with terra cotta ornamentation, completed 16 years earlier. The New York County Lawyers' Association building would be starkly different.
In the 2000 Inventing the Skyline, The Architecture of Cass Gilbert, Margaret Heilbrun notes, "The association preferred a building in a classical revival style. This meshed with Gilbert's interest in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century architecture...For the law association, Gilbert believed that the colonial, or Georgian, style provided the building with a 'simple, dignified and impressive' image."
While the Landmarks Preservation Commission describes the style as Federal Eclectic, its roots are more British than American. Heilbrun notes, "The exterior of the Lawyers' Association was similar to rowhouses of Lincoln's Inn Fields, London." The wrought iron fencing would not be out of place in front of an 18th century men's club in London's West End.
Completed in 1930 and faced in limestone, Gilbert divided the four-story structure into five distinct bays, the openings of the two-story midsection separated by double-height fluted Corinthian pilasters. Bas relief rondels and panels dignified the spandrels between floors. The fourth floor sat behind a handsome stone balustrade above a bracketed cornice.
Gilbert's son, Cass Gilbert, Jr., worked with him on the project, especially, according to Heilbrun, on the interiors. The ground floor held offices and reception rooms. On the second floor were the auditorium and lounge, and the third held reading rooms. The committee board rooms were on the fourth floor, and the janitor's quarters occupied the penthouse level. While the exterior was English, the design of the auditorium was inspired by Independence Hall in Philadelphia.
The Auditorium - image via showcase.com
The ongoing Great Depression played a part in the interior design. Heilbrun writes:
Initially, both Gilbert and the association wanted to segregate any women using the space, whether they were members of the association or relatives of a member. The association wanted a balcony in the auditorium for wives. Gilbert contemplated separate lounge and reception areas for the few female members. In both cases, the added expense of providing these areas persuaded the association to allow women to mix with men.
While the association could not influence the Depression, it had a strong impact on America's other significant issue at the time--Prohibition. On December 17, 1930, The New York Times reported on the "movement begun late in 1927 by the New York County Lawyers' Association to bring about a clear-cut test of the amendment's validity." Now Federal District Judge William Clark had declared the Eighteenth Amendment "unconstitutional because [it was] illegally ratified."
image via showcase.com
The New York County Lawyers' Association Building would be the scene of innumerable hearings over the decades. On November 24, 1964 alone, for instance, The New York Times reported on two hearings held the previous day. One, by the Temporary State Commission on Revision of the Penal Law and Criminal Code urged the state "to make a prostitute's customers guilty of a crime." The other had to do with cruelty to animals. The Commission had asked that "intent be made a factor in prosecution." That drew heated testimony from irate organizations, including the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the Humane Society of the United States, the animal Welfare Institute and the Friends of Animals.
image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.
Perhaps the most consequential reviews were the Joint Legislative Committee on Crime hearings conducted by Senator John H. Hughes in January 1970. For days crime figures like Mafia leader Joseph Colombo, Carlo Gambino, and Domenico Arcuri testified. On January 15, The New York Times explained, "the aim of the hearing is to increase 'public awareness' of criminal activity in many fields."
The following year, in August, a two-day hearing conducted by the City Board of Corrections interviewed witnesses concerning "the incidence of death and suicide in city prisons."
The New York County Lawyers' Association left 14 Vesey Street in 2020. The building was listed for $35 million and sold to Jack Terzi, founder of JTRE Holdings for "in the low $20 million range," according to The Real Deal.
photo by Americasroof
Cass Gilbert's dignified limestone structure was designated an individual New York City landmark in 1965 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.
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