A changing face
1862
City Hall, housed in a Charles Bulfinch-designed structure on School Street, is razed to make way for a new building.
1865
Construction of a City Hall inspired by the Tuileries Palace and the Louvre in Paris is completed.
1962
Architects Gerhard Kallmann and Noel Michael McKinnell win a national design competition for a City Hall building in the razed Scolley Square. The design committee called the proposal "a keystone between the historic past and the brilliant future which is to come."
1967
City government begins a two-year process of moving to the $26 million concrete structure at Government Center. One critic ridicules it as "the crate Faneuil Hall came in." Mayor John Collins, working in an office with no heat, comes down with pneumonia and misses the inauguration of his successor, Kevin White.
1969
The American Institute of Architects chooses Boston City Hall for an Honor Award. Writing in The
1996
Saying City Hall is too small and inefficient, Mayor Thomas M. Menino explores moving city government into the old Federal Courthouse at Post Office Square. The effort comes two years after he held an idea competition to remake City Hall Plaza.
1998
Menino sets aside $250,000 to fund a study on relocating City Hall to another downtown site, but determines conditions in the real estate market are prohibitive.
2006
Menino pledges to sell City Hall and build a new one on the South Boston waterfront.
Compiled by Globe Staff Librarian Matthew Mahoney and Staff Reporter Donovan Slack.
