The fantastical Jefferson Market building—with its turrets, gables, stained glass, and incredible clock tower—started out in 1877 as a courthouse and jail (with a notorious women’s prison in a long-gone building behind it).
It flirted with demolition in the 1950s before being recycled into a branch of the New York Public Library.
This is all old news to fans of gothic-inspired New York architecture. But what isn’t as well-known is that the building was apparently inspired by a German castle—called Neuschwanstein, former home of Bavaria’s King Ludwig II.
The AIA Guide to New York City calls Jefferson Market a “mock Neuscshwansteinian assemblage,” while New York Architecture has compiled some information on the castle, described as “neo-late romanesque.”
Hmm, see a resemblance?
Ephemeral New York 