Tweed Courthouse

The Tweed Courthouse serves as a grand, permanent monument to one of the most brazen acts of financial theft in American history. While it was intended to cost a mere two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, the final bill ballooned to thirteen million dollars, a figure that far exceeded the cost of building the United States Capitol at the time. This massive discrepancy was driven by the political machine of William Boss Tweed, who funneled city funds into his own pockets through absurdly inflated contracts for simple services. A single carpenter was paid nearly five million dollars in today's money for one month of work, and the city was billed two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for brooms alone.