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Victim of the Commune, the Hotel de Ville (Town Hall) was rebuilt by Ballu and Deperthes between 1874 and 1882 in the neo-Renaissance style. The central part of the façade reproduces the one designed by Boccador in 1533; 146 statues stand in the niches on all four of its sides. The main stairwell leads to the Banqueting Hall and to the reception halls whose decor is a mixture between the Renaissance and Belle Époque styles. Jean-Paul Laurens and Puvis de Chavannes shared the painting.

This square's former name, Place de Grčve (strike), gave rise the expression Ťto strikeť (faire grčve): unemployed workers in fact had the custom of meeting there in the Middle Ages. A place for executions under the Ancien Régime with different procedures (depending on your status or the nature of your crime you were hung, beheaded, put on the wheel, burnt or drawn and quartered), today it is covered with granite slabs and a door in the middle, the side aisle of Paris.