The Hôtel de Ville served as the headquarters of the Paris Commune from March 1871, and was destroyed by fire during the Versailles government's suppression of the Commune in May 1871. This albumen-print stereoview, published as part of Adolphe Block's "Ruines de Paris et Environs" series, documents the gutted shell of Paris's city hall in the immediate aftermath of that catastrophe. Adolphe Block was a Paris-based publisher of stereoscopic views who was prolific from 1863 onward, and this view belongs to the documentary series he issued in the early 1870s recording the destruction across the city.

The photograph presents the building's long Renaissance-revival facade in a sweeping three-quarter view, its ornate arched windows and carved stone pilasters still largely intact at street level while the upper floors and roofline are open to the sky, chimneys and skeletal gable ends rising above collapsed interior floors. The broad plaza in the foreground is strewn with rubble contained by low wooden fencing, and a cast-iron gas lamp stands at the near corner, with several small figures visible at mid-ground providing scale.

The Hôtel de Ville was entirely destroyed on May 24, 1871, along with the city's archives. The building was subsequently rebuilt, though its library and archives had been completely lost. Stereoviews from Block's ruins series reached a wide public audience and stand today as primary photographic evidence of the destruction wrought during the Bloody Week.

The orange card mount bears the series title "Ruines de Paris & Environs" printed vertically on the left border and "A. Block Editeur, Paris" on the right. Inscribed in ink on the verso: "Hotel de Ville" ("Hotel de Ville" [City Hall]).