General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums51 Post Offices You Should See Before They're Gone
http://www.buzzfeed.com/kdries/51-post-offices-you-should-see-before-theyre-goneDrunken Irishman
(34,857 posts)Comparable to the City Hall or a local church. I'd hate to see them go. Our main post office was turned into a federal courthouse, which is cool...
And the one in my neighborhood ... it's now a banquet hall:
David J Gill
(2 posts)Major building, public and private are changing use and ownership dramatically in almost very city I come across.
Banks are becoming hotels,
Small banks and monumental banking rooms in large bank buildings become restaurants,
In Cleveland the 1929 Board of Education Bldg will become a Drury Inn.
Office buildings are becoming apartment buildings
In Cincinnati the former Federal Reserve branch Bldg is now an apartment building
In Pittsburgh the former Federal Reserve Bldg (once an Art Deco masterpiece) will become a Drury Inn.
Even in my home town of Medina Ohio the elegant Savings Deposit Bank is now a restaurant
In Berkeley CA the USPS is trying to sell the very fine downtown main post office to a developer (who happens to be Nancy Pelosi's well healed husband.) The public is fighting this.
Some of these are creative reuses of existing buildings that shouldn't be torn down and entirely commendable.
Others may be more about penny pinching (the Cleveland School Board Bldg) Excessive consolidation of the banking industry is another reason. This is beneficial to stock holders in the short run but detrimental to cities and the soundness of the banking system...but this is what the powerful banking sector demands and has bought from Congress.
Other government entities are abandoning historic buildings because we Americans starve Fed, State, Local and school districts of tax funds because about half of voters demand ever lower taxes at all times. (Good for the rich bad for everyone else.)
And then there is the business innovation trend in favor of getting out of the property management business and selling corporate campuses bank buildings etc to real estate development management companies. (Good for business bad for everyone else.)
I suspect the need to run in a lean and businesslike manner and liquidating classic buildings is the Federal Reserve's motivation (A decision that particularly irks me. i.e. Pittsburgh.) The fact that The Federal Reserve creates money and its operating budget is really a defensive gesture at accountability to mollify anti-Fed crackpots. Fed bankers have no understanding of the value of historic buildings and cultural properties and feel no sense of accountability in that regard.
In some cases it seems that gov and institutional leaders like new and don't like old facilities.
In addition to the loss or compromise of historic buildings all too many building in urban environments in America carry any of their original meaning. All is just marketable space, a commodity, at the mercy of business preferences.
In Ohio qualifying for state historic building tax credits is the game, but it seems there are few standards for preservation that must be adhered to in these deals. as usual we have to give away more tax money and bribe business to act in a way that is not entirely detrimental to cities. All in all I suspect business, as well as government leaders would rather move to green field sites as so much business other private and government entities have moved from Detroit toward Ann Arbor.
[link:https://flic.kr/p/9seFSX|
[link:https://flic.kr/p/6JB3fA|
Xipe Totec
(43,890 posts)But it reminds me of the Information Retrieval building in the movie Brazil.
snagglepuss
(12,704 posts)an elegant building.
justiceischeap
(14,040 posts)this just may fit the bill.
MineralMan
(146,317 posts)Inside, there is an old mural:
Sorry I don't have a better photo from the interior. This is the post office I use regularly. Very nice.
dhill926
(16,343 posts)looks a lot like the art in Martinsville, IN, from what I can remember....
No Vested Interest
(5,167 posts)Reminds one of Thomas Hart Benton's work. -
Could they be?
MineralMan
(146,317 posts)I will ask, next time I am there.
SayWut
(153 posts)as a cost savings measure, or to give people of the era something they would immediately recognize as a post office.
I personally know of at least 3 with nearly identical facades, and there's 3 in the OP's link (Manitou Springs, CO, Selbyville, DE and Tonopah, NV), and yet another one posted here.
MineralMan
(146,317 posts)mrmpa
(4,033 posts)HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)That is in a beautiful old building. I expect it will be closed soon. Also, the nation's smallest PO is in the Everglades. About 80 square feet. It won't last long either.
drmeow
(5,019 posts)has an mechanical eagle that flaps its wings every hour on the hour from 8 am to 8 pm:
http://longisland.about.com/od/landmarksattractions/ss/long-island-roadside-attractions_3.htm
frazzled
(18,402 posts)Well, that was the opening bid that was set for Chicago's old Main Post Office building in 2009. It eventually sold for $17 million, still a pretty good deal for close to three million square feet of marble and concrete. You saw it in Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. I guess it's going to be some massive retail, apartment, and office complex. But I haven't seen much happen to it yet (I live fairly near the structure).
Its not the cost of acquisition people need to focus on, Mr. Levin said. Its the cost of updating. The minimum bid could have been a dollar. We made it $300,000 in order to weed out complete amateurs.
Another drawback is maintaining the building, which even in its current vacant state costs about $2.5 million annually for utilities, maintenance and security.
The behemoth, which is nine stories tall with 14-story corner towers, is several blocks southwest of the Loop, the downtown central business district. It was designed by Graham, Anderson, Probst & White in a Neoclassical/Art Deco style and built in phases from 1921 to 1932. (Graham, Anderson is the firm responsible for Chicago landmarks like the Wrigley Building, the Civic Opera House and Union Station.) The total cost was $22 million.
A peculiarity of the building is that it was built using air rights over railroad tracks that terminate several blocks to the north, at Union Station, and so it has no basement. In addition, the Congress Expressway literally passes through the structure. The two-story-high tunnel carries six lanes of traffic.
The building is often described as the worlds largest post office. At its peak, 5,000 workers processed more than 35 million letters annually, using 10 miles of conveyor belts and 48 elevators. Every day, more than 125 trains and 6,000 trucks arrived at the facility.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/05/realestate/commercial/05chicago.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Beacool
(30,250 posts)I have been to 4 of these post offices (DC, Miami, Nantucket and New York). Some will never be destroyed as they are registered landmarks, but this is the one that made me laugh.
Tanuki
(14,918 posts)has been preserved as an art museum:
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http://fristcenter.org/
snagglepuss
(12,704 posts)bluestate10
(10,942 posts)offices and some of the lean-to, hamlet and small village offices shown in the compilation being closed. But the people that live in the places that will get their office closed vote blindly for the people that have caused the problem, republicans.