The City Hall Post Office and Courthouse was a building designed by the architect Alfred B. Mullett for a triangular site in New York City along Broadway in Civic Center, lower Manhattan, across City Hall Park from New York City Hall. The Second Empire style building, built between 1869 and 1880, was not well received. Commonly called "Mullett's Monstrosity", it was demolished in 1939 and the site was used to extend City Hall Park to the south.HistorySince 1845, the city's main post office had been located in the Middle Dutch Church on Nassau Street, a dark 18th-century building which by the 1860s was stretched past its capacity. Congress eventually agreed and funds were allocated for a new central post office. The initial planning for the project was carried out through a design competition for the site. Fifty-two designs were submitted, but none were judged acceptable. After the failure of the competition, five firms were selected to collaborate on a single design. Richard Morris Hunt, Renwick and Sands, Napoleon LeBrun, Schulze and Schoen and John Perret together produced a Second Empire concept that borrowed from Renwick's Corcoran Gallery of Art and the New York State Capitol. Following complaints by Mullett that the proposed design was too expensive, Mullett took over the project, which nonetheless cost $8.5 million. This coup may have influenced opinions on Mullett's final product. The iron framing was clad with a pale granite quarried in Dix Island, Knox County, Maine.