Built in Beaux-Arts style, the four story architecture facing south towards Manhattan, was erected with stone granite and adorned internally with lavish stairways, chandeliers, ornaments, and stained glass windows.

Its exterior commands two pillars above the entranceway surrounding the throne of Lady Justice (the Greek goddess Themis or Dike) who honors and protects the gates of the law and encompassing city with unwavering and fair judgment.

By the turn of the century, their endeavors were awarded as the city allocated funding for a new building that would represent the area and growing population that had increased from 40,000 in 1874 to more than 200,000 by 1900.

Despite early efforts, his initial concepts were rejected by the New York Art Commission, which denoted them as substandard to the goal being attempted for the site.

Over the course, he met with underemployed architect, Oscar Florianus Bluemner, a German immigrant who had been a prize student at Berlin's Royal Academy of Design.

Though the story not fully concrete, it is believed that Garvin offered to share fees and credit for their combined efforts in return for an acceptable building.

[10] The majority of the departments moved to the spacious facility, leaving only a police court at the Third Avenue site until 1977, when the building was officially closed by the city.

Soon, city intervention sealed all doorways and windows with concrete blocks leaving the facility dormant and bound in graffiti for a couple of decades.

Many historians, community leaders, and preservationists sought to keep the building alive, so not to repeat the travesty of Bronx Borough Hall; it obtained Landmark status in 1981, protecting it for future possibilities.

[16] Beyond 2005, a revival of critical interest has surfaced for Oscar Bluemner's paintings, being honored at a show at the Whitney Museum of American Art that year and having garnered widespread attention.