The Real Life Night Court That Inspired The Show And Is One Of New York's Most Bizarre Attractions

There's a law in New York that everyone arrested in the city needs to be arraigned within 24 hours of their arrest, meaning that the criminal court has to run into the wee hours of the night. According to an article in News.com.au, the night court heard cases from 5 p.m. to 1 a.m. and, up until 2003, there was even another graveyard shift that ran from 1 a.m. to 9 a.m.

According to the New York Post, the night court became a bizarre tourist attraction in part because of its inclusion in the Lonely Planet New York guide book where it was called "something that feels really underground and unique." The New York Criminal Court is even listed on TripAdvisor as number 299 of 1,403 things to do in The Big Apple.

But not everyone is happy that the court has become a tourist attraction. The Tab author Callum McCulloch visited the night court and found the voyeurism of visiting the court to be disturbing. In the previously mentioned New York Post article, a visitor to the court who was there for a friend's arraignment seemed horrified at the idea of coming to the court for fun. So perhaps you shouldn't add the night court to your list of places to visit the next time you're visiting the city that never sleeps.