A Valentine’s Day Hotspot: The NYC Marriage Bureau.
In New York City on Valentine’s Day, it’s a big day for weddings at City Hall.
The Marriage Bureau reopened more than 15 years ago after a massive renovation under the Bloomberg administration that replaced a formerly rundown space in the city’s Municipal Building in Lower Manhattan.
The city’s Marriage Bureau, like its kind everywhere, used to be charmless and bureaucratic, the last place you’d want to be on your wedding day. As writer Eric Messinger wrote after it’s renovation: “It’s attractive, welcoming, well-run, and even a little whimsical” and said “Isn’t it a wonderful statement of how New Yorkers should be treated on one of the most important days of their lives?”
Click here to read the backstory on the revamp of NYC’s marriage bureau.
L: A couple tosses their bouquets from the stairs of the Municipal Building where the marriage bureau is in Lower Manhattan (Photo by Damon Winter/The New York Times); R: A couple finalizes their license before getting married in 2015 (Photo by Damon Winter/The New York Times)