One Police Plaza (often abbreviated as 1PP) is the headquarters of the
New York City Police Department (NYPD). The building is located on
Park Row in
Civic Center,
Manhattan near
New York City's
City Hall
In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or a municipal building (in the Philippines), is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses ...
and the
Brooklyn Bridge
The Brooklyn Bridge is a hybrid cable-stayed/ suspension bridge in New York City, spanning the East River between the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn. Opened on May 24, 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge was the first fixed crossing of the East River ...
. Its block borders Park Row, Pearl Street, and Police Plaza. 1PP replaced the NYPD's previous headquarters at
240 Centre Street
240 Centre Street, formerly the New York City Police Headquarters, is a building between Broome and Grand Streets in the Little Italy neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City.
History
It was built in 1905–1909, and was designed by the firm ...
, approximately north of 1 Police Plaza.
Description
One Police Plaza is rectangular in plan and is an
inverted pyramid Inverted pyramid may refer to:
* Inverted pyramid (journalism), a metaphor in journalism for how information should be prioritized and structured in a text
* Inverted pyramid (management), also known as a "reverse hierarchy", an organizational st ...
in elevation. It is a 13-level, horizontally-oriented
brutalist
Brutalist architecture is an architectural style that emerged during the 1950s in the United Kingdom, among the reconstruction projects of the post-war era. Brutalist buildings are characterised by Minimalism (art), minimalist constructions th ...
building designed by
Gruzen and Partners in 1973. A expansion project was completed in 2011. Although the project did not add any new floors to the building, it did add new computers and equipment. Angry Lower Manhattan residents held a rally on August 27, 2008 near One Police Plaza to protest the addition, and tenants of three neighboring co-ops filed a lawsuit to force the NYPD to undergo environmental and land use reviews.
Located on the eighth floor of One Police Plaza is the
Real Time Crime Center, an anti-crime computer network which is essentially a large search engine and data warehouse operated by detectives to assist officers in the field with their investigations. The
Major Case Squad and the
Technical Assistance Response Unit (TARU) are also located at 1PP.
Inside 1 Police Plaza, a room on the second floor affectionately called "
The Shack" serves as the police bureau office for local press outlets. Its tenants include the
Associated Press, the ''
Daily News'', ''
New York Post'', ''
The New York Times'', ''
Newsday
''Newsday'' is an American daily newspaper that primarily serves Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island, although it is also sold throughout the New York metropolitan area. The slogan of the newspaper is "Newsday, Your Eye on LI", and f ...
'', ''
Staten Island Advance
The ''Staten Island Advance'' is a daily newspaper published in the borough of Staten Island in New York City. The only daily newspaper published in the borough, and the only major daily paper focused on a borough, it covers news of local and ...
'', ''
El Diario La Prensa'',
NY1 News, and
WINS Radio. Its police counterpart is on the 13th floor, the office of the Deputy Commissioner of Public Information (DCPI). Also inside 1PP is the "Fourteenth Floor", the NYPD commissioner's office.
Park Row closure criticism
Park Row, historically a major artery linking the
Financial District to
Chinatown
A Chinatown () is an ethnic enclave of Chinese people located outside Greater China, most often in an urban setting. Areas known as "Chinatown" exist throughout the world, including Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Africa and Austra ...
and the
Bowery, has been closed to civilian traffic since 2001.
The NYPD asserts that this is necessary to protect its headquarters from a truck bomb attack. Chinatown residents were particularly frustrated at the disruption caused by the closure of the thoroughfare, especially nearby residents. People who live nearby argued that the police department had placed a chokehold on an entire neighborhood and that if One Police Plaza was such an obvious terrorist target, it should be moved from a residential area. Members of the Civic Center Residents Coalition fought the security perimeter around One Police Plaza for years. Park Row reopened for foot traffic and
MTA buses in 2005, although only 200 buses per day were allowed on the street, and they had to pass through security checkpoints.
In 2007, the NYPD stated that it would not be moving despite the numerous complaints from residents, explaining that they had tried to alleviate the impact of the security measures by forbidding officers from parking in nearby public spaces and by reopening a stairway that skirts the headquarters' south side and leads down to street level near the
Brooklyn Bridge
The Brooklyn Bridge is a hybrid cable-stayed/ suspension bridge in New York City, spanning the East River between the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn. Opened on May 24, 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge was the first fixed crossing of the East River ...
. The department also planned to redesign its guard booths and security barriers to make them more attractive, and was involved in efforts to convert two lanes of Park Row into a
cycling and pedestrian greenway,
which opened in June 2018.
References
{{Portal bar, Architecture, New York City
1973 establishments in New York City
Brutalist architecture in New York City
Civic Center, Manhattan
Government buildings completed in 1973
Headquarters in the United States
New York City Police Department buildings
New York City Police Department
Office buildings in Manhattan
Police headquarters