THE New York Surrogates’ Court is one of the most extravagant Beaux Arts buildings in NYC and one building I’d really like to enter one day to see the fantastic interiors. It was constructed from 1899-1907 (Horgan and Slattery and John R. Thomas) and was originally the Hall of Records, the place you wrote to to obtain tax photos of nearly every NYC property, taken in 1940 and 1980 (I would write, but they never answered me. Fortunately everything is online now). The building’s frontage on Chambers Street features several historical figures associated with NYC, some household names, some not: David Pietersen de Vries, Caleb Heathcote, DeWitt Clinton, Abram S. Hewitt, Philip Hone, Peter Stuyvesant, Cadwallader D. Colden and James Duane. There are 54(!) such statues on the building exterior! I can’t seem to find a comprehensive list. By now many of these men (they are all men) are obscure except for the most throughly knowledgeable NYC historian, such as Mike Wallace of the “Gotham” books. The NYC landmarks page, written in the 1960s, is fairly thin on details and actually the wikipedia page is rather thorough.
The folks at Untapped Cities are able to get into places that I cannot, and thus, they have acquired interior photos that include its recently restored magnificent skylight.
Surrogates’ courts hear cases involving the affairs of decedents, including the probate of wills, and the administration of estates and trust proceedings.
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5/23/24