The Hatching Cat of Gotham

The monumental Beaux-Arts style building, which opened in 1909, featured a grandiose entrance hall and such amenities as a basement shooting range and printing center, carpeted offices for the commissioner and officers on the second floor, third-floor library, fourth-floor gymnasium with drill room and running track under the roof dome, fifth-floor radio broadcasting station and telephone exchange (formerly a telegraph bureau), and even a rooftop observation deck. As The New York Times wrote, “its grandeur contrasted utterly with the little buildings and crooked streets around it.”