It is not always an agreeable business to devote one’s time to destroying a myth which has become lodged in the affections of the people, but sometimes it rests on so slight a foundation that there is nothing gained in keeping it alive. We have lately seen how the tradition that Washington Irving used to live in the house on the corner of Irving Place and Seventeenth Street had no foundation in fact, except that he had a nephew who lived next door. And so the story so often repeated in newspapers and guide books that the City Hall was finished in brownstone at the back because the city fathers thought that nobody of any importance would ever live to the north of it might, it seems, be set at rest, although the attempt is not made for the first time. The story reflects on the intelligence of the people of the day. The reason was economy, but not joined to deficiency of foresight. The Common Council of that day, instead of being obtuse on the subject were quite the other way, and show by their records that they took a highly optimistic view of what they call the city’s “unrivaled” situation and opulence. They state their belief that in a very few years the hall that they were about to build would be the _center_ of the wealth and population of the city. It was at first arranged to build entirely of brownstone, and the contractors got their work done as far as the basement, as can readily be seen to-day. Then the views of the Common Council underwent a change. A halt was made and McComb was requested to make an estimate of the cost in marble. From an interesting article appearing in the _Century Magazine_ for April, 1884, written by Mr. Edward S. Wilde, it seems that the committee’s report states: “It appears from this (the architect’s) estimate that the difference of expense between marble and brownstone will not exceed the sum of $43,750, including every contingent charge. When it is considered that the City of New York from its inviting situation and increasing opulence, stands unrivaled ... we certainly ought, in this pleasing state of things, to possess at least one public edifice which shall vie with the many now erected in Philadelphia and elsewhere ... in the course of a very few years it is destined to be the center of the wealth and population of the city. Under these impressions the Building Committee strongly recommend that the front and two end views of the new hall be built of marble.” The corporation then authorized the use of marble on three fronts. The brownstone of the rear received its first coat of white paint only a few years ago, as nearly anyone who reads this can testify. In 1858 the cupola was destroyed by fire and was restored in a poor manner, but Mr. Wilde says: “Notwithstanding this change and the damage done less by time than by stupidity, the hall stands to-day unsurpassed by any structure of the kind in the country.” [Illustration] Astor Library