Photos of the restored exterior were made in the summer of 2015.
South Facade
This tower was originally used to dry Fire Department hoses. The drying racks are still in place inside the tower.
South East Entrance
What's This?
South Facade
The fancy, cream colored object is called an anchor plate or a wall washer. If you look at the highest raised part you see that it is a very large nut threaded on the end of a tie rod. Although the anchor plates used for City Hall are quite decorative they have a serious, practical function. They are installed in brick walls as braces and they serve to prevent lateral bulging in a wall. They have been used for centuries and often the most common design for the plate is a five pointed star. Sometimes the tie rod simply spans the thickness of a wall but sometimes, as is the case here, the tie rod extends the width of the building. The anchor plate needs to cover several courses of brick to be effective. Here 12 courses are covered. Anchor plates are often star shapes, discs, ovals, fancy rosettes, simple or fancy "s" shapes but the design seen here is rare and must have been expensive. They are usually made of cast iron.
