James A. Farley Building
United States General Post Office | |
New York City Landmark No. 0232
| |
McKim, Mead, and White | |
Architectural style | Beaux-Arts |
---|---|
NRHP reference No. | 73002257[1] |
NYSRHP No. | 06101.000007[2] |
NYCL No. | 0232 |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | January 29, 1973 |
Designated NYSRHP | June 23, 1980[2] |
Designated NYCL | May 17, 1966 |
The James A. Farley Building is a mixed-use structure in
The main
The James A. Farley Building was known as the Pennsylvania Terminal until 1918, when it was renamed the General Post Office Building. The building was made a
Site
The building fronts on the west side of Eighth Avenue, across from
Architecture
The Farley Building consists of the old general post office building, completed in 1914, and its western annex, completed in 1935. The original building was designed by the firm of McKim, Mead & White, who also designed the adjacent original Pennsylvania Station in the same Beaux-Arts style.[6][1]: 3 [7] William Mitchell Kendall was the lead architect on the design.[8] The firm also designed the annex.[9]
Facade
The four-story structure consists of granite ashlar cladding around a steel-frame superstructure.[1]: 2 The monumental facade on Eighth Avenue was conceived as a Corinthian colonnade, composed of twenty 53-foot-tall (16 m) columns. The imposing design was meant to match the strength of the colonnade of McKim, Mead, and White's original Pennsylvania Station across Eighth Avenue, which originally faced the General Post Office Building. A flight of 31 steps, extending across the full length of the colonnade, provides access from the street to the main floor.[6][1]: 2 The colonnade is braced at the end by two square pavilions, each capped with a low saucer dome, expressed on the exterior as a low stepped pyramid.[1]: 2
An entablature above the colonnade bears the inscription "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds". The sentence is taken from
The facades along 31st and 33rd Streets contain colonnades with flat pilasters.[6] These sides are divided into seven sections: a tripartite central pavilion with archways, flanked on either side by a row of pilasters and a square end pavilion. The Ninth Avenue side contains a similar row of flat pilasters.[1]: 2 There are three arches at the center of the Ninth Avenue facade, which were used for truck deliveries.[15] The roof is mostly flat, aside from the pyramidal roofs of the end pavilions. A sill runs above the third story.[1]: 2 Until 1994, the fourth story was crowned by an ornate stone cornice.[16] The roof of the building is about 101 feet (31 m) above the curb.[17]
The main floor, 22 feet (6.7 m) above ground level, is surrounded by a dry moat, providing light and air to workspaces below.[6] The moats ran along 31st and 33rd Streets and along the corners at Eighth Avenue; they originally featured glass skylights overlooking the tracks. The moats were replaced with concrete slabs by the late 20th century.[18]: 20 The moats at the corners at Eighth Avenue were infilled. In 2017, the former moats became entrances to the West End Concourse of Moynihan Train Hall, underneath the Farley Building.[19]
Interior
Inside the Eighth Avenue entrance is a two-story-tall gallery that parallels the colonnaded front. The floors of the gallery were originally paved in various colors of marble, while the walls were made of buff marble and white plaster, with various windows along both sides.
Elevators led from the Farley Building to most of Penn Station's platforms. By the end of the 20th century, only the elevator to track 12 was used to deliver mail.[18]: 20 In addition, six siding tracks extend west from Penn Station underneath the Farley Building. At the time of the original Penn Station's completion in 1910, these tracks could fit 26 mail cars. There were three subsurface levels provided for mail transport within the building: a basement 18 feet (5.5 m) below street level, the tracks 50 feet (15 m) deep, and a trucking platform 72 feet (22 m) deep. These connected to the mailing level, which was just above street level. Chutes and conveyor belts connected the levels.[22]
Inside the building is Moynihan Train Hall, designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM). It consists of 255,000 sq ft (23,700 m2) of space[23] underneath a 92 ft (28 m) tall glass skylight.[24] The hall also contains 120,000 sq ft (11,000 m2) of retail space.[25] Moynihan Train Hall contains passenger facilities for Amtrak, its primary tenant. These include a ticketing and baggage area, a waiting lounge, conference spaces, and a balcony 20 ft (6.1 m) above the hall.[26]
History
Construction
A general post office in Midtown Manhattan had been planned from the late 1890s.
The architect was selected under the
Operation as post office
Opening and early years
The original monumental structure officially opened on September 5, 1914.[43] With this, the Long Island Rail Road's mail operations were moved from Long Island City to the Penn Station post office.[44] As completed, the Penn Station post office measured 355 feet (108 m) along Eighth Avenue and 332 feet (101 m) along the side streets, with 400,000 square feet (37,000 m2) of interior space. The Times described it as the second largest building in the city behind the original Penn Station and Grand Central Terminal, the post office incorporating some 165,000 cubic feet (4,700 m3) of pink granite, 18,000 tons of steel, and 7 million bricks.[17] The construction of the Penn Station post office spurred the opening of printing businesses in the vicinity.[45]
The post office was known as the Pennsylvania Terminal when it opened; at the time, the city's general post office was still the City Hall Post Office in Lower Manhattan. Effective July 1, 1918, the Penn Station post office became New York City's general post office.[46] By the early 1920s, the General Post Office had become congested, and a U.S. Congressional report in 1923 recommended that it be expanded westward.[47] The U.S. government announced its intention, in 1927, to buy the plot immediately west of the existing post office building.[48]
Expansion
The Post Office Department announced an expansion of the General Post Office in 1930. The western part of the block would contain an annex to the main facility, as well as a parcel post station called Morgan Station.[49][50] McKim, Mead & White were rehired for the expansion.[9] In April 1931, the Treasury Department bought the western half of the block from the Pennsylvania Railroad for $2.5 million.[51] The building was expanded between 1932 and 1934 under then-Postmaster General James A. Farley.[18]: 25 The work involved installing the largest girder in the city's history at the time, a 152-short-ton (136-long-ton; 138 t) girder that stretched 115 feet (35 m) across the railroad tracks.[52] Foundation work was contracted to James Stewart & Co. and was nearly completed by early 1933.[15]
The federal government awarded a $4.3 million construction contract to James Stewart & Co. in February 1934 after having unsuccessfully advertised for bids on three occasions over the previous years.
Late 20th century
During the 20th century, the General Post Office hosted Christmas tree-lighting events.
In the early 1990s, U.S. senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan began to champion a plan to rebuild a replica of the historic Penn Station, in which he had shined shoes during the Great Depression. At the time, existing facilities at Penn Station were overcrowded and the USPS was planning to move much of its operations to another facility.[62] In 1994, the cornice was removed; it was so deteriorated that chunks of stone had started falling onto the street.[16] Parts of the deteriorated steel structure were also replaced.[18]: 20
The Farley Building was instrumental to maintaining service levels in the New York metropolitan area following the September 11 attacks in 2001, when it served as a backup to operations for the Church Street Station Post Office opposite the World Trade Center complex.[63] By October 2002, the New York state government had arranged to buy the Farley Building from the USPS for $230 million, with the USPS vacating much of the building.[64][65] The Farley Post Office building was sold to the New York state government in 2006 in the hope that Moynihan's vision would be realized.[66] Before the Great Recession in 2009, the Farley Post Office was the only New York City post office that was open 24/7,[67] but as a result of the recession, its windows started closing at 10:00 p.m.[68][69]
Reuse
Portions of the landmark James Farley Post Office were adaptively reused and converted to a new head house for Penn Station, called Moynihan Train Hall, which houses Amtrak and the Long Island Rail Road.[70][71] The first phase, consisting of new exits, a connection to the New York City Subway at 34th Street and Eighth Avenue, and an expanded concourse within the James Farley Post Office, started on October 18, 2010.[72][73][74] The first phase opened in June 2017.[75] Construction of the second phase, comprising a new train hall within the Farley Building, started two months afterward.[76] It opened on January 1, 2021.[77]
As part of the Moynihan redevelopment, The Related Companies and Vornado Realty Trust were selected to develop the building's retail space.[78] The companies signed a contract in June 2017.[79] Vornado and Related leased the building for 99 years, and in exchange, contributed $630 million to the hall's construction.[79][80] In early 2018, Vornado and Related started considering plans to convert the Farley Building's remaining space that was not being used by the train hall. The developers contemplated marketing the building for use by a biotechnology or pharmaceutical company.[81] In August 2020, Meta Platforms signed a lease for all 730,000 square feet (68,000 m2) of the office space in the Farley Building, following a similar acquisition the company had made at nearby Hudson Yards the previous year.[82][83] The lease came during the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City, when most Manhattan office workers were remote workers, and was seen at the time as a major positive for Manhattan's office market.[82][84]
See also
- List of New York City Designated Landmarks in Manhattan from 14th to 59th Streets
- National Register of Historic Places listings in Manhattan from 14th to 59th Streets
Notes
- ^ The other competing firms were Carrere & Hastings, Heins & LaFarge, George B. Post & Sons, H. Van Buren Magonigle, Whitfield & King, Kenneth M. Murchison and Cass Gilbert.[34]
References
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Actually, the U.S. Postal Service does not have an official motto. The phrase which most people associate with the postal office is that which is engraved on the outside of the James A. Farley Post Office building...
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External links
- Farley (September 2018), Vornado Realty Trust
- "Postal History: James A. Farley Biography" (PDF). USPS. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 10, 2007.