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The United States Customhouse is a historic and active custom house at 2nd and William Streets in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Architect Robert Mills designed the custom house in 1834 in a Greek Revival style. It has been used by the U.S. Customs Service ever since, and today serves as a port of entry. The building was designated a National Historic Landmark and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1970 for its architectural significance as one of the finest modest Greek Revival government buildings in New England.〔〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=NHL nomination for Custom House, New Bedford )〕 ==Building history== In 1789, New Bedford was chosen to be the administrative center of the Tenth U.S. Customs District. Colonel Edward Pope was chosen to be the district's first collector. By 1825, New Bedford has surpassed Nantucket as the as world capital of the whaling industry, a distinction it would hold for much of the nineteenth century. In response to the importance of New Bedford as a port city, the U.S. Congress authorized the construction of a Custom House in 1832. The initial appropriation was $15,000, but the funds were insufficient to meet new U.S. Treasury Department requirements for fireproof construction. With the allocation of additional appropriations, construction began in 1834. The final cost was approximately $31,000. The design of the U.S. Custom House is attributed to Robert Mills (1781–1855), architect of the U.S. Treasury Building and the U.S. Patent Office in Washington, DC. Mills also designed three other U.S. Custom Houses in New England at about the same time: those in New London and Middletown, Connecticut, and Newburyport, Massachusetts. Although the four Greek Revival U.S. Custom Houses are similar in scale, plan, materials, and detailing, the New Bedford building is the largest and most architecturally elaborate. Collectively, the buildings represent an early example of standardized construction and supervision that formed a pattern of design for the federal building program in later years.〔 Considered functionally outdated in 1958, the U.S. Custom House was extensively restored in 1962. It was listed as a contributing building in the New Bedford National Historic Landmark District in 1966. In 1970 it was designated a National Historic Landmark and listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The U.S. Custom House became part of the New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park in 1996.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「United States Customhouse (New Bedford, Massachusetts)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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