*Originally published on another blog of mine, Miscellaneous Notes, now republished here with slight edits and modifications*

FEATURING — Old Post Office Building

It was drizzling today, but I managed to pull myself out of my apartment for another post office visit. This time’s destination was the Benjamin Franklin station, located in the Federal Triangle two or three blocks east of the White House. It also sits across 12th St NW from the grand Old Post Office Building, which is now the seat of a Waldorf-Astoria. Although I visited the station before exploring the Old Post Office, for the sake of historical narration let’s talk the latter first.

Old Post Office, New Waldorf-Astoria

The Old Post Office Building, which was built in its Romanesque Revival glory of arched windows and solid, impressive masonry in the 1890s, served as the U.S. Post Office Department (POD)’s — take a guess — 6th headquarters in this city. None of the first four structures exists today, but the fifth — the General Post Office built in 1839 and in use as the postal headquarters between 1841 and 1899 — still stands but as Hotel Monaco, which I will probably visit in the next few days. 

Anyway, due to the increasing importance of postal services and the growing volume of mail from and to the District, the “Old” Post Office, then brand new, was approved for construction in 1890 on this site. Back then the Federal Triangle was no reputable place, but rather a collection of brothels and urban slums aptly called “Murder Bay,” so the Congress chose this location in an explicit attempt to “revitalize” that infamous neighborhood. 

Its construction began in 1892 and took seven long years to finish, but the end result justifies the time invested — it contained the largest uninterrupted enclosed space in DC at the time, the first DC structure to have a pre-designed electrical wiring system (enabling innovative indoor lighting), and is still the third tallest architecture in the city at 315 feet (behind Washington Monument’s 555 and the National Shrine’s 329). The bell tower is now operated as a museum and a sightseeing platform, although I learned upon arrival that it would only re-open starting tomorrow.

After the City’s Main Post Office moved to the “New Post Office” in 1914 next to the Union Station, which I visited before Christmas, the POD had this building to itself for twenty more years, until it also moved out in 1934, across the street to the “New Post Office Building,” which for the sake of clarity I shall refer to as the Clinton Federal Building, a name that technically denotes the entire complex. But before we go there, let’s talk about the history of Old Post Office after it ceased to serve any postal purpose.

For example, how it escaped demolishment for the second time in 1971. I say “second time” because in the 1920s the government once considered tearing it down to make space for new federal office buildings that were being erected next to it. That time it was saved, oddly enough, by the Great Depression which halted those building projects. In the 1970s, however, it was saved by concerned citizens who had it listed in the National Registry of Historic Places, guaranteeing its legal protection.

In 2013 this property was leased to The Trump Organization, which developed it into a luxury hotel that opened in 2016. The lease was resold to another business group in 2022, and the hotel renamed to Waldorf-Astoria. The building’s interior remained essentially unchanged, but most of the postal facilities an equipment had been removed, save a tubed mailbox in the foyer. This is not, as I initially suspected, part of a larger pneumatic tube mail system like that in New York City, but a simple intra-building collection box.

In short, starting in the 1880s, as multi-story skyscrapers emerged in major cities, it became more and more annoying for office workers to deposit their mail. The POD’s solution was to install in them a system of chutes, not for garbage, but for letters, which can be thrown inside and end up in a collection box on the ground floor. This box in the Waldorf was made by the Cutler Company, but appears to have been customized to say “Department Mail” instead of the more generic “Letters.”

More Photos of the Old Post Office