Image: Courthouse Square as seen from Court Street Bridge, Owego, New York - 20220206

Description: Courthouse Square in central Owego, New York, as seen from near the crest of the Court Street Bridge over the Susquehanna River on a February 2022 evening. The square has been the site of a public park dating back to 1797, only a few years after the village's incorporation, and it's today the central node of the historic downtown. In 1871, about half of the park was reclaimed by the municipal government to serve as the home of the Tioga County Courthouse, which was completed the following year to a design by locally-based architect Miles F. Howe and is seen at center in the photograph. Unusually for the Second Empire style, bluntly pointed arches are a recurring motif: you see them not only on the prominent limestone window heads above the double arched windows on the three-story towers that delineate the building's four corners, but also crowning the façade itself in the form of a raking cornice undergirded by block modillions. Even more unusual is the absence of a mansard roof, ordinarily the style's defining feature. The entrance, not visible from this perspective, is framed consecutively by a round arch of cut limestone and a shallow tetrastyle portico with stylized Corinthian pillars. The interior, too, is architecturally notable for its fine-quality woodwork, including chestnut wainscoting on the walls as well as window frames and furnishings in black walnut. In front rises the Tioga County Memorial, a 50-foot shaft of Barre granite crowned and flanked by depictions of Civil War soldiers and sailors, erected in 1890 to the memory of the local "heroes who fought, and martyrs who fell, that the Union might live".
Title: Courthouse Square as seen from Court Street Bridge, Owego, New York - 20220206
Credit: Own work
Author: Andre Carrotflower
Usage Terms: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0
License: CC BY-SA 4.0
License Link: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Attribution Required?: Yes