The Jacob K. Javits Federal Office Building at 26 Federal Plaza on

Foley Square Foley Square, also called Federal Plaza, is a street intersection in the Civic Center neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City, which contains a small triangular park named Thomas Paine Park. The space is bordered by Worth Street to t ...

in the

Civic Center A civic center or civic centre is a prominent land area within a community that is constructed to be its focal point or center. It usually contains one or more dominant public buildings, which may also include a government building. Recently, the ...

neighborhood of

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

houses many federal government agencies. At over 41 stories, it is the tallest federal building in the United States. It was built in 1963–69 and was designed by Alfred Easton Poor and Kahn & Jacobs, with Eggers & Higgins as associate architects. A western addition, first announced on "inadvertently acquired land" in 1965, was built in 1975–77 and was designed by Kahn & Jacobs, The Eggers Partnership and Poor & Swanke. The building is named for

Jacob K. Javits Jacob Koppel Javits ( ; May 18, 1904 – March 7, 1986) was an American lawyer and politician. During his time in politics, he represented the state of New York in both houses of the United States Congress. A member of the Republican Party, he a ...

, who served as a

United States Senator The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and po ...

from New York for 24 years, from 1957 to 1981. The building is assigned its own ZIP Code, 10278; it was one of 41 buildings in Manhattan that had their own ZIP Codes . The building falls under the jurisdiction of the

United States Federal Protective Service The Federal Protective Service (FPS) is the uniformed police division of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS). It is also "the federal agency charged with protecting and delivering integrated law enforcement and security servi ...

for any and all law enforcement and protection issues. To the east of the main building is the James L. Watson Court of International Trade Building.

History of the site

Gothic style Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

masonic hall was located at this site between Reade and Pearl Streets from 1826 to 1856, directly across from the original site of the

New York Hospital Weill Cornell Medical Center (previously known as New York Hospital or Old New York Hospital or City Hospital) is a research hospital in New York City. It is part of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital and the teaching hospital for Cornell University. ...

. This would serve as the home of the

Grand Lodge of New York The Grand Lodge of New York (officially, the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of the State of New York) is the largest and oldest independent organization of Freemasons in the U.S. state of New York. It was at one time the largest grand ...

until its demolition.

Occupants

Agencies located in the building include the

Department of Homeland Security The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the U.S. federal executive department responsible for public security, roughly comparable to the interior or home ministries of other countries. Its stated missions involve anti-ter ...

, the

Social Security Administration The United States Social Security Administration (SSA) is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government that administers Social Security, a social insurance program consisting of retirement, disability and survivor benefits. To qualify f ...

, and the

General Services Administration The General Services Administration (GSA) is an independent agency of the United States government established in 1949 to help manage and support the basic functioning of federal agencies. GSA supplies products and communications for U.S. gover ...

. The New York City district field office of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services' New York field office is on the 7th Floor, the Brooklyn field office is on the 8th floor and the Queens field office is on the 9th floor. The

Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice ...

's New York field office is on the 23rd floor.New York Field Office
.

. Retrieved on June 9, 2015. "26 Federal Plaza, 23rd Floor New York, NY 10278-0004"

Artworks

A controversy developed over the artwork by

Richard Serra Richard Serra (born November 2, 1938) is an American artist known for his large-scale sculptures made for site-specific landscape, Urban area, urban, and Architecture, architectural settings. Serra's sculptures are notable for their material q ...

commissioned for the plaza in front of the building, '' Tilted Arc''. Commissioned in 1979 and built in 1981, it was criticized both for its aesthetic values and for security reasons. It was removed in 1989, which resulted in a lawsuit and a trial. The piece remains in storage, as the artwork was site-specific, and the artist does not want it displayed in any other location. The removal and trial led to the creation of the

Visual Artists Rights Act The Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 (VARA), ( title VI, ), is a United States law granting certain rights to artists. VARA was the first federal copyright legislation to grant protection to ''moral rights''. Under VARA, works of art that meet ce ...

of 1990. After the removal of ''Tilted Arc'', landscape artist Martha Schwartz re-designed the plaza."Jacob Javits Federal Building & James Watson Court of International Trade, New York, NY"
on the

website Other artworks connected with building include ''A Study in Five Planes/Peace'' (1965) by

Alexander Calder Alexander Calder (; July 22, 1898 – November 11, 1976) was an American sculptor known both for his innovative mobiles (kinetic sculptures powered by motors or air currents) that embrace chance in their aesthetic, his static "stabiles", and hi ...

and the ''Manhattan Sentinels'' (1996) by

Beverly Pepper Beverly Pepper (née Stoll; December 20, 1922 – February 5, 2020) was an American sculptor known for her monumental works, site specific and land art. She remained independent from any particular art movement. She lived in Italy, primarily in ...

. In the James L. Watson Court of International Trade can be found ''Metropolis'' (1967) by

Seymour Fogel Seymour Fogel (August 24, 1911 – December 4, 1984) was an American artist whose artistic output included social realist art early in the century, abstract art and expressionist art at mid-century, and transcendental art late in the century ...

and ''Eagle/Justice Above All Else'' (1970) by Theodore Roszak.

References

Notes

External links

{{Civic Center, Manhattan 1969 establishments in New York City Buildings of the United States government in New York (state) Civic Center, Manhattan Federal buildings in the United States Government buildings completed in 1969 Government buildings in Manhattan Skyscraper office buildings in Manhattan

History of the site

Occupants

Artworks

See also

References

External links