The Apprentices' Library Building, where the courts were held, was a notable structure. One of the principal sources of its fame arose from the fact that its corner-stone was laid on the 4th of July, 1825, by that earnest and zealous friend of American institutions, Lafayette. It was taken down in 1858 to make room for the Armory, which was afterward sold. Previous to the erection of the City Hall it served as the municipal building. The Common Council and Board of Education met there. The municipal court also held its sessions in the building, and it afforded room for the post office and county clerk's office. On the 1st of May, 1828, an act was passed by the Legislature providing for the erection of a fire-proof county clerk's office in Brooklyn. The Legislature, on the 25th of April, 1833, passed an act for the erection of a court house and jail in Kings County. By this act Losee Van Nostrand, Joseph Moser, and Peter Canaver were appointed commissioners to purchase a suitable site or sites in the village of Brooklyn for the same. To defray the expenses to be incurred in erecting the buildings, the supervisors were authorized to create a public stock to the amount of $25,000. A building committee of five persons was directed to be appointed by the Supervisors of the county, and the president and Trustees of the village, within sixty days after the passage of the act. The act also provided that when the court house and jail, or either of them, should be so far completed as to permit either of them being used for the purpose intended, that the first judge of the county should sign a declaration to that effect, and file the same in the office of the clerk of said county. The clerk thereupon was to publish the notice in the papers printed in the county, and from and after this publication the terms of the court of common pleas and general sessions should be held in the court-room, and from and after such declaration relating to the jail it should become the common jail of the county. This act was amended February 17, 1834, so as to declare that the second section of the act of 1833 authorized the Supervisors to create stock, not only for the purchase of a site, but also for erecting buildings.