Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House

The Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House is a building in New York City built in 1902–07 by the federal government, to house the duty collection operations for the Port of New York. It is located at 1 Bowling Green, near the southern tip of Manhattan, roughly on the same spot as Fort Amsterdam, the original center of the settlement of New Amsterdam, and Government House, the mansion built as an official residence for the President of the United States, but which was never occupied. The building is now the home of the George Gustav Heye Center of the National Museum of the American Indian, as well as the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York; since 2012, it is also the home to the National Archives at New York City.ArchitectureThe building was designed by Minnesotan Cass Gilbert, who later designed the Woolworth Building, which is visible from the building's front steps. The selection of Gilbert to design the building was marked with controversy. Until 1893, federal office buildings were designed by government architects under the Office of the Supervising Architect of the United States Department of the Treasury. In 1893, the Tarsney Act permitted the Supervising Architect to hire private architects following a competition. The Supervising Architect James Knox Taylor picked Gilbert, who earlier had been his partner at the Gilbert & Taylor architecture firm in St. Paul, Minnesota. The scandal never quite blew over, and in 1913, the Tarsney Act was repealed.