There is known to be an 18th-century description of the town hall as a magnificent wooden building with arcades on columns, with a shingled roof. It was the seat of a Vogt, a Mayor with councillors and a juried court. The townsfolk gathered in front of the building could listen to the debates of the City Council. The cellars of the building housed a prison and a storeroom for wine. Behind the building there was a  ‘kucza’ or a place where the headsman executed certain punishments. The first descriptions of the brick town hall in Nowy Targ date back to the mid-19th century. In the inter-war period, the building also housed shops and tailors’ workshops. The town hall owes its current shape to Mayor Jakub Podkanowicz who ordered its refurbishment and modernisation at the turn of the 20th century. The current town hall is a two-storeyed neo-classical building with its front facing south towards the Tatra Mountains and a glass tower housing a historical clock. The tower is topped by a spire with a sword, a torture wheel, and a palm branch, symbols of St. Catherine, the city’s patron. In the front middle part of the first floor is a beautiful iron balcony from where the townspeople would be addressed, for example by the mayor and by prominent citizens of the 2nd Republic, such as Władysław Orkan during the celebration of the jubilee of his writing work. There are two commemorative plaques on the walls of the Town Hall. To the left of the entrance is a granite relief made by the sculptor Stanisław Marcinow in 1930 with funds from  the city community to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the ‘Miracle on the Vistula’. It was bricked up during the German occupation and during the communist era. To the right of the entrance, a bronze relief dedicated to the Holy Father John Paul II, an honorary citizen of Nowy Targ, was placed in 2005. It was designed by the artist Marcin Ozorowski and created by Michał Batkiewicz in his studio. As of 14 October 2005, a loud bugle call plays from the town hall tower at 9.00, 12.00, 15.00, 18.00 and 21.00. It is a melody of the song titled ‘Idzie Jasiek na zbój’ (‘Jasiek goes for a robbery’) composed by Józef Titz, a teacher of the Nowy Targ Grammar School and music school. Professor Józef Titz was Karol Wojtyła’s teacher of music and singing in Wadowice. The Town Hall building offers tourist information operating as part of the Malopolska Tourist Information System.