At over 41 stories, it is the tallest federal building in the United States.  

A western addition, first announced on "inadvertently acquired land" in 1965, was built in 1975–77 

The vertical window slits of the glass walls are misaligned so that all the adjacent windows are at a different height,  

The facade forms an alternating zig-zag pattern 

To the east of the main building is the James L. Watson Court of International Trade Building. 

Agencies located in the building include the Department of Homeland Security, the Social Security Administration, and the General Services Administration.  The New York City district field office of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services' New York field office is on the 7th Floor, the Brooklyn field office is on the 8th floor and the Queens field office is on the 9th floor. The Federal Bureau of Investigation's New York field office is on the 23rd floor.

A 41-storey glass-walled slab facing east that is partly "wrapped" around a core that faces Broadway. 

Originally the facade facing Broadway was a windowless wall of exposed concrete 

In 1976 an extension by the same architects brought offices also to the western portion.  

The exterior is clad in gray Alabama limestone panels, black Minnesota granite panels, and glass 

The facade elements are arranged in an irregular checkerboard pattern.  

On the triangular plaza in front of the building is the eight-storey Customs Courthouse as a black glass cube that is elevated on two white vertical "plates" that slice through the cube. 

United States Court of International Trade 

Entrance canopy 

On the interior, the main entrance lobby is clad in marble, while the elevator lobbies are clad in Vermont marble and floors are covered with terrazzo. 

Marble and wood-panel walls in the courtrooms and mosaic-tile walls in the elevator lobbies. 

Courtroom interiors 

Marble and wood-panel walls in the courtrooms 

Seymour Fogel's colorful geometric mosaic Metropolis (1967) is in the lobby  

1969 - Jacob Javits Plaza  Located in the heart of New York City's civic center, the Jacob Javits Plaza (a.k.a. Federal Plaza) is at the intersection of several diverse communities. The one acre plaza of the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building at Foley Square serves both as an open-air entryway to the building and as a public park drawing users from the nearby residential neighborhoods of Tribeca, Chinatown, and Battery Park City.

1994 - Wall Drawing #746: 36 Identically sized cubes, each with color ink washes superimposed.  The installation consists of 36 identically sized 5 x 5 cubes in a design based on detailed instructions written by the artist that have been specified for that particular site. This wall drawing was one of 1200 and will remain at Federal Plaza for twenty years with a possible extension for an additional ten.

1981 - Tilted Arc  Removed after a lengthy and very public battle and court case pitting Richard Serra against the GSA over artists rights to their installed 'site-specific' works. A controversy developed over the artwork by Richard Serra commissioned for the plaza in front of the building, Tilted Arc. Commissioned in 1979 and built in 1981, it was criticized both for its aesthetic values and for security reasons. It was removed in 1989, which resulted in a lawsuit and a trial. The piece remains in storage, as the artwork was site-specific, and the artist does not want it displayed in any other location. The removal and trial led to the creation of the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990.