Liggett Hall

In 1902, Secretary of War Elihu Root asked the New York architectural firm McKim, Meade and White to create a grand master plan for a new Army base on Governors Island, and part of his vision expanded the island with excavated material from construction of the Lexington Avenue Subway, more than doubling its size from 69 to 172 acres. Liggett Hall, completed in 1929 as the first structure built on that landfill, was supported for stability by steel piles driven to bedrock beneath the island. Built to replace rough temporary wood-frame housing erected for World War I, it housed an entire regiment of more than 2,500 men, including the 16th Infantry Regiment, known as New York’s Own, from 1930 through 1940. Later Army and Coast Guard use altered the interior, and its large central section above the monumental archway contained a drill hall more than 200 feet long where soldiers practiced formations and maneuvers before it was used primarily as a gymnasium in later years. Among the largest Army barracks ever constructed, the building stretched about 1,050 feet, nearly as long as the Chrysler Building in midtown Manhattan is high, and it was named for General Hunter Liggett, who served as Chief of Staff for the American Army in France during World War I.

New York, New York · United States