1221 SW Fourth Avenue
City Hall in Portland, Oregon on February 15, 2010
On the west side of the Terry D. Schrunk Plaza is Portland City Hall. This site was originally the location of the 1869 Oregon Episcopal School.
City Hall in Portland, Oregon on February 15, 2010
The city purchased the site in 1891 and in 1892 construction began on a five-story design by Henry Hefty with space for the police department and jail that had five domed towers and resembled the Kremlin, but after the construction of the foundation and basement the city's budget had run out. The state of Oregon took over the project and appointed a board of local businessmen to complete it. The board hired the Portland architectural firm of William M. Whidden and Ion Lewis to design a new building, and construction restarted in 1893.
City Hall in Portland, Oregon on February 15, 2010
The Whidden & Lewis four-story Italian Renaissance design of sandstone with rotunda columns of pink Scottish Aberdeen granite and four-foot ornamental limestone urns at the corners of the roof originally featured a domed cupola and a 200-foot clock tower which were never built due to costs. Additional cost-saving measures included building unreinforced masonry walls and concrete slurry floors.
City Hall in Portland, Oregon on February 15, 2010
The building was completed in 1895 and was one of the first large buildings in the Pacific Northwest to be considered fireproof and to have electric wiring, centralized heating and public elevators.
City Hall in Portland, Oregon on February 15, 2010
City Hall was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on November 21, 1974 and has been through a number of renovations, with the most recent one, including bringing the building into compliance with current city building codes being completed on March 30, 1998.
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