The courthouse was designed by the architectural firm Kohn Pedersen Fox and was built under a design-build contract with developer BPT Properties with core and shell construction by Lehrer McGovern Bovis and interior construction by Structure Tone Inc.

Using seven pillars, the exhibition documents Moynihan as "the Senator, the Man, the New Yorker, the Diplomat, the Presidential Cabinet Member, the Intellectual and the Author."

Senators Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Alfonse D'Amato, Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Representative Jerrold Nadler, Second Circuit Court of Appeals Chief Judge Jon O. Newman, Southern District of New York Chief Judge Thomas P. Griesa attended the ceremony.

The courthouse was renamed after Moynihan in 2000 under legislation sponsored by Senator Chuck Schumer,[3] and was officially rededicated on December 4, 2000.

Moynihan worked to push Congress, the General Services Administration, and various New York City mayors to build the courthouse.