Broadway and City Hall in New York (Brodway-Gatan Och Rådhuset i New York)
Designer Axel Klinckowström Swedish
Etcher Carl Fredrik Akrell Swedish
Not on view
This view looking up Broadway from Saint Paul's Chapel illustrates a text written by Axel Klinckowström, a Swedish baron who visited New York in 1819. Bref om de Forente Staterne (Letters from the United States), published in 1824, mentions that "about a third of the length of the street from the Battery, you come across a large three-cornered place, which is shaded by beautiful trees. Here is the City Hall. It is built in a light and very pretty style. I have made a correct drawing of this place." Akrell decried the roaming pigs, noting, "On several occasions [they] have been the cause of remarkable scenes, jumping about here and there and bowling over richly dressed ladies." City Hall had been rebuilt between 1803 and 1811 to designs by John McComb Jr. (1763-1853) and Joseph François Mangin (1764-after 1818).