For Throwback Thursday, we’re going back to 2013 to revisit our award-winning* restoration of the Jefferson Market Branch Library, a National Historic Landmark and an icon of the Greenwich Village Historic District.

Designed by Frederick Clarke Withers and completed in 1877, the building exemplifies High Victorian Gothic design. Converted from a courthouse to a library in 1961, it’s often cited as one of the first examples of adaptive reuse. Given this context, SUPERSTRUCTURES’ 2013 exterior restoration project sought to preserve both stages of the building’s evolution as being historically important.

In conjunction with an exterior envelope investigation, the firm performed a structural assessment of the front gable and rafters. Subsequently, a full exterior restoration addressed deficiencies in the building’s brick, sculpted sandstone, slate and copper roof, and cast-iron ornament. The project included structural stabilization of the main gable and tower roof, waterproofing, and restoration of the tower’s balcony railings and clock faces.

The structure served its original purpose as a courthouse until 1945. By the 1950s, neglected and decayed, it was slated for demotion. But its flamboyant originality and romantic silhouette had won the building some ardent admirers, and a campaign by concerned Villagers, including such notables as Lewis Mumford, Jane Jacobs and E.E. Cummings, with the eventual support of Mayor Robert Wagner, saved the building.

SUPERSTRUCTURES is proud to have played a role in the rich, ongoing history of this irreplaceable landmark.

Thanks to the NYC Department of Design and Construction and Nicholson & Galloway, Inc.

*The project was awarded a Lucy G. Moses Preservation Project Award by the New York Landmarks Conservancy.