Old Post Office
- Year
- 1883
- Style
- Renaissance Revival
- City
- Albany, NY
The Old Post Office, also known as the United States Government Building, sits at the intersection of State Street and Broadway in Albany, built between 1879 and 1883 at a cost of $627,148. Plans had circulated two decades earlier for a much larger Gothic Revival structure, but rising costs of acquiring land forced a smaller, more economical building, and the Italian Renaissance Revival style was chosen instead. Since 1977 it has served as offices for the central administration of the State University of New York.
the building
A downsized ambition. The building's Italian Renaissance Revival design was a fallback: two decades before construction, planners had envisioned a larger Gothic Revival post office, but the time and expense of assembling the land pushed costs past budget, and officials built smaller instead.
From mail to university offices. Postal operations moved out before 1972, and the building held other federal offices for a few more years before SUNY's central administration took it over in 1977 as part of SUNY Plaza.
the style
The completed building took the Italian Renaissance Revival style, a scaled-back substitute for the originally planned Gothic Revival structure that proved too costly to build on the intended land.
More on Renaissance Revivalsignificance
The Old Post Office was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972, and is also a contributing property to the Downtown Albany Historic District, listed in 1980.
nearby
- 48 Hudson Avenue
- Union Station
- St. Peter's Episcopal Church
- St. Mary's Church
- New York Court of Appeals Building
- Albany City Hall