You may be unsure whether you should capitalize “City Hall” or write it without capitalization as “city hall.” Well, depending on the situation you sometimes do want to capitalize city hall and other times you do not.
When Is City Hall Capitalized?
If you are talking about a specific City Hall in an exact place, you should capitalize it. For example, if you were telling a friend, “I went to the Saint Louis City Hall,” you would be talking about the City Hall within Saint Louis, a specific building in an exact physical place.
This is a situation where City Hall is a proper noun, as it is within that named city. This could also apply if you were talking about an exact city hall, even without naming a city. If you said, “I went to my City Hall in town,” you would be using a proper noun, as you are talking about a very real City Hall.
When Is City Hall Not Capitalized?
If you are not talking about a specific city hall, you should use lowercase letters. For example, someone writing a letter that encourages people to, “Call city hall and complain,” is not talking about a specific city hall, so they use the lowercase version.
Also, if you were saying a popular expression such as, “You can’t fight city hall,” that is a metaphor where city hall represents the government in general. It is not a real city hall, it is a fictional version and therefore is not capitalized–it is symbolic.
In Conclusion
When it is a specific City Hall in a real city and/or is an actual City Hall in a physical place, capitalize “city hall.”
When it is a generalized city hall used as a term for the government or is used as part of a popular saying where city hall is symbolic, do not use capital letters.
