Independence Day 1929 was a great one for Tammany Hall.

Tammany was not just an institution, synonymous with the Democratic machine in New York City; with patronage, self-dealing, mendacity and corruption.

It was also a place: a handsome red brick and limestone auditorium on Union Square in Manhattan, with offices for the powerful Tammany Society political organization. The building was designed in a neo-Georgian style that was intended to conjure (misleadingly or not) the rectitude of the early republic, when the society was founded.

On July 4, 1929, not long before he began starving Tammany of its influence, Gov. Franklin D. Roosevelt came to Union Square to help dedicate its new hall. The holiday, the dedication and the 100th birthday of its grand sachem, John R. Voorhis, amounted to a “triple celebration for Tammany,” The New York Times reported.