Guy Lowell (1870-1927) was the architect of the New York County Courthouse, having achieved that position upon prevailing in a public design competition. His initial, prize-winning designs envisaged a vast round courthouse, which was never built. It was said of this proposal that the building would have been the largest courthouse in the world. When revisions were required, he created a design for the smaller, hexagonal courthouse that we know today and he oversaw the building’s construction, which, for various reasons, including disruptions caused by World War I, was protracted. The courthouse opened in February 1927. Lowell died very shortly before the opening.
Not long after his death, a bust of Lowell was commissioned. The original of this bust in marble is located in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, which Lowell also designed. A copy of this bust was crafted in bronze and was installed in the New York County Courthouse. In recent years, the administration of the Supreme Court, Civil Branch, New York County was concerned about ensuring that adequate attention and respect were accorded Lowell as the architect of the courthouse and was dissatisfied with the fact that the sponsors of the bronze bust at the courthouse had placed it in an inconspicuous location in the colonnade that leads from the main entrance of the courthouse to the rotunda on the first floor, as a result of which very few members of the staff and none of the public were able to see it. The administration did not, however, wish to remove the bust from the location in which it had been placed by those who had caused it to be created. As a compromise, the administration commissioned the creation of an exact copy of the bust in bronze, which was fabricated using the ancient lost wax method by Excalibur Bronze Art Foundry of Brooklyn, New York. This bust was then placed on a suitable stand, fabricated specifically for the purpose, in the rotunda. This remains the home of the bust today.
Further Resources
60 Centre Street: A Look Back and Some Ruminations About the Future
by John F. Werner and Robert C. Meade, Jr., Esqs. (2023)