[18][29] As originally configured, the building had a large number of private elevators, stairways, and hallways to separate the public, police officers, and prisoners from each other.

[41] The fourth floor was used as an armory and drill room, with a running track measuring 1⁄16 mile (330 ft; 100 m) long;[8][36] a raised stage was located at one end.

[32] The grand apartments occupy the former commissioner's office, dome, gymnasium, and radio room; they have decorations that are not present in the other units, such as indoor balconies, vaults, and skylights.

[9] The NYPD's original central office was at New York City Hall;[57] the department's first standalone building was constructed at 300 Mulberry Street and opened in 1862.

[62] Jacob A. Cantor, the Manhattan borough president, suggested that the Centre Market site could be used to construct an annex to the existing police headquarters.

[81] The Board of Estimate rejected McAdoo's alternate site suggestion in June 1904, directing the NYPD to instead construct the building at Centre Market.

[93] Hoppin & Koen submitted plans for the headquarters to the Manhattan Bureau of Buildings that February,[43] and the old Centre Market was almost completely demolished by the next month.

[102] The construction contractors installed all of the statuary on the building's facade without receiving approval from the Municipal Art Commission, but this discrepancy was not discovered until mid-1907.

[133] With the number of employees at the new headquarters increasing, police commissioner Richard Edward Enright requested $4 million in February 1924 for an annex immediately across Centre Market Place to the east.

[153] NYPD commissioner Arthur W. Wallander had requested that the New York City Planning Commission set aside the Collect Pond site for the new headquarters.

[166] By then, the New York Herald Tribune wrote that the NYPD officers had "grown to hate the headquarters' pretentious exterior [...] and its unlovely interior".

[167] Patrick Murphy, who served as the NYPD's deputy commissioner, described the building as lacking air-conditioning and relying on direct current for electricity.

[172] The same year, the NYPD spent $410,000 installing an electronic command post on the building's third floor, where closed-circuit television footage from cameras across the city was displayed.

[21] When the NYPD vacated 240 Centre Street, the city government had no immediate plan for the structure, which needed several million dollars in renovation.

[3] The sculptor Louise Nevelson, the former U.S. first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and community members formed the Save the Police Headquarters Committee to advocate for the cultural center.

[187][186] The association planned to raise $300,000 to convert 240 Centre Street into a cultural center,[187] and LIRA launched a study on possible uses for the building.

Oscar Ianello, LIRA's leader at the time, anticipated that the entire building would eventually contain community rooms, art studios, rehearsal space, and a swimming pool.

[193][197] The presence of guards failed to deter trespassers, leading the city government to begin stationing attack dogs there in early 1981.

As part of the agreement, Trans-Nation would spend $15 million converting the building into the Hotel de Ville, and it would pay the city $350,000 a year in rent, plus payments in lieu of taxes.

The city government estimated that 240 Centre Street would cost $10 million to renovate; the structure was extensively decaying, and most valuable metals had already been removed.

[195] In addition to restrictions on the site's usage, potential developers had to set aside space for community amenities,[195] and 240 Centre Street could not be demolished or significantly altered without the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission's (LPC) approval.

[209] The renovation was delayed for several months after Jeffersonian's employees looked at official city street maps and found that the building protruded past the boundaries of its land lot in every direction.

[212] Ehrenkrantz Group & Eckstut was hired to renovate the building, while Lydia dePolo—who was married to Fourth Jefferson Associates' general partner, Arthur Emil—designed the interiors.

[223] The Dime Savings Bank of New York moved to foreclose on 26 of the unsold apartments in 1992 after Fourth Jeffersonian Associates defaulted on $15.39 million in mortgage loans.

[226][227] Initially, the city government leased the basement space for $1 per month to the Organization of Independent Artists,[227] which operated the Police Building Gallery there.

[228] In addition, more high-profile residents moved into 240 Centre Street, including the fashion designer Calvin Klein, the tennis player Steffi Graf,[229][230] and the models Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington, and Linda Evangelista.

[54] When the building was completed, the Brooklyn Eagle wrote that "the rooms of the commissioner remind one of the private office of a Wall Street banker, while the main staircase from the first floor would do justice to a first-class hotel".

[34] During its time as a police headquarters, 240 Centre Street contrasted with the smaller buildings nearby,[45] and the New York Daily News wrote that "it stood in graceful counterpoint to the neighborhood around it".

[239] Conversely, Henry Hope Reed Jr. wrote for the same newspaper that the building's Centre Street portico and interiors gave a "palatial impression".

[240] After 240 Centre Street became a cultural center, a New York Times writer said that the building "fills its wedge-shaped plot with rare panache" and was a vestige of urban American architecture from before World War I.