The postcard shows the Town Hall on the Central Square. Chernivtsi was made the capital of the Bukowina after the annexation by Austria in 1775 and granted the status of a city in 1786. Only in 1832 Chernivtsi got a proper Magistrat (city council) headed by a regular mayor. In 1843 the contruction work for a city hall on the Ringplatz started and were finished in 1848. The classicist building by the architect Andreas Mikulicz has a tower of 50 meters, used as watchtower by the fire brigade and a clock which once used to strike every full hour. In Austrian times, it was topped with a gilded double headed eagle. It was renovated in 1903. The rooms in the cornes on the first floor were rented out to shops. One of the most important mayors was Anton von Kochanowski who served from 1866-74 and 1887–1905. Chernivtsi was the only Landeshauptstadt (provincial capital) of the Austian Empire where Jews were elected mayor: Eduard Reiss (1905-07) and Salo von Weisselberger (1914).
In the time between the wars the Town Hall showed the letters PRIMARIA, Romanian for town hall. The building to its left is the “Banca De Est”, to its right the savings bank, built in secessionist style in 1901.
