United States Post Office-Main Branch
- Style
- Art Deco
- City
- Philadelphia, PA
- Collection
- philly deco
Built between 1931 and 1935 across from Amtrak's 30th Street Station, the United States Post Office-Main Branch served as Philadelphia's central postal processing facility from 1933 until its closure in 2008. The six-story steel-frame building, clad in limestone and detailed in the Art Deco style, measures 386 by 455 feet, and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2006.
the building
Rooftop autogyro airmail. Starting July 6, 1939, the building's flat roof served the world's first scheduled rotorcraft airmail route, with Kellett KD-1B autogyros flown by Eastern Air Lines making five round trips a day, six days a week, to Camden Central Airport six miles away. The roof was built with underfloor heating to melt snow and ice, plus take-off ramps, radio and weather equipment, and fueling and maintenance facilities for the aircraft.
the style
The building's Art Deco detailing, applied over a steel frame and limestone cladding, gave a purely functional postal facility a monumental civic face, in keeping with the era's federal building projects.
More on Art Decosignificance
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2006, the building operated as Philadelphia's main postal facility until it closed in 2008.
nearby
- Cira Centre
- Centennial National Bank
- Pennsylvania Railroad Office Building
- Hajoca Corporation Headquarters and Showroom
- First Troop Philadelphia City Cavalry Armory
- College of Physicians of Philadelphia