Highland Falls Village Hall
Encyclopedia
The Highland Falls Village Hall is located on Main Street in Highland Falls
Highland Falls, New York
Highland Falls, formerly named Buttermilk Falls, is a village in Orange County, New York, United States. The population was 3,678 at the 2000 census. The village was founded in 1906...

, New York, United States. It is a three story Italianate
Italianate architecture
The Italianate style of architecture was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. In the Italianate style, the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian Renaissance architecture, which had served as inspiration for both Palladianism and...

-style
Architectural style
Architectural styles classify architecture in terms of the use of form, techniques, materials, time period, region and other stylistic influences. It overlaps with, and emerges from the study of the evolution and history of architecture...

 brick buildings erected about 1894.

Originally it housed a bank for many years. It became the village hall in 1967. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

 in 1982.

Building

The village hall is located at the southwest corner of the intersection of Main Street and Schneider Avenue in the densely developed downtown section of Highland Falls. It is a three-story, nine-by-nine-bay
Bay (architecture)
A bay is a unit of form in architecture. This unit is defined as the zone between the outer edges of an engaged column, pilaster, or post; or within a window frame, doorframe, or vertical 'bas relief' wall form.-Defining elements:...

 brick structure with a flat roof. There are glass storefronts at street level north of the centrally located main entrance, round-arched and supported by fluted
Fluting (architecture)
Fluting in architecture refers to the shallow grooves running vertically along a surface.It typically refers to the grooves running on a column shaft or a pilaster, but need not necessarily be restricted to those two applications...

 pilaster
Pilaster
A pilaster is a slightly-projecting column built into or applied to the face of a wall. Most commonly flattened or rectangular in form, pilasters can also take a half-round form or the shape of any type of column, including tortile....

s.

A dentiled cornice separates the first and second stories. The windows on the second and third stories are framed by projecting round brick arches, with the southernmost bays on both stories bricked in. Pilasters run the full height of the building to triangular brick corbel
Corbel
In architecture a corbel is a piece of stone jutting out of a wall to carry any superincumbent weight. A piece of timber projecting in the same way was called a "tassel" or a "bragger". The technique of corbelling, where rows of corbels deeply keyed inside a wall support a projecting wall or...

s below a slightly elevated bracketed
Bracket (architecture)
A bracket is an architectural member made of wood, stone, or metal that overhangs a wall to support or carry weight. It may also support a statue, the spring of an arch, a beam, or a shelf. Brackets are often in the form of scrolls, and can be carved, cast, or molded. They can be entirely...

 cornice. The north elevation, along Schneider, has similar windows, with the first floor's offset slightly to the west to accommodate one of the storefronts.

History

The exact year of the building's construction, and its original purpose, is not known. A brick building is shown at the site on maps from 1859 and 1875, but not 1891. The local tax assessor dates the building to 1894.

In 1907 records show that a Mr. Kreutz sold the building to the First National Bank of Highland Falls. At that time alterations were made to the exterior. Storefronts were added and the southernmost upper windows bricked in.

Later First National became part of Marine Midland Bank
Marine Midland Bank
Marine Midland Bank was a bank formerly headquartered in Buffalo with several hundred branches throughout the state of New York. Marine Midland began in 1850 in Buffalo as the Marine Trust Company with the objective of financing the new shipping trade on the Great Lakes...

. In 1967 the village acquired the property. It has used it ever since, without any significant alterations.

External links

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