“You can’t fight city hall” is an American adage that expresses frustration with political power. Yet local government buildings also embody emblems and stories of the city. The movie Philadelphia (1993) opens with an aerial view of City Hall—a proud Second Empire-style building (1871–1901), replacing the older federalist one at Independence Hall. Philadelphia, PA’s costly project sought to be the tallest building in America, but fell into later disrepair with 1970s deindustrialization. Other edifices epitomize nineteenth-century industrial America or later Beaux-Arts urban reform (St Louis, MO, San Francisco, CA); New York’s 1803–11 miniature palace proves distinctly understated in a towering city. Fanciful revivals of Indian and Spanish motifs in the 1920s, the skyscraper Los Angeles, CA built to demarcate a new downtown (1926–8) and Buffalo’s art deco tower (1929–32) illustrate subsequent visions of modernity A third wave of city halls emerged with 1960s urban renewal and increased federal presence, encompassing sculptural modernism in Las Vegas or Dallas (designed by I.M. Pei) and a federal local center for civic renewal in Boston, MA. Like the offices they shelter, all these city halls convey urban aspirations, memory identity and power.