A Hidden World Inside New York's Great Post Office
Across the street from Penn Station, in the heart of midtown Manhattan, is the enormous and imposing Farley Post Office.
Designed in 1912 by the famous architecture firm of McKim, Mead and White, the Farley building covers two square city blocks. You can still climb its marble staircase to mail a letter, but there's very little left behind that grand facade.
"I love the fact, among many, that you walk by it every day and you have absolutely no idea that 95 percent of it is completely empty," says film location scout Nick Carr, who has written about the post office on his blog, Scouting NY.
Five thousand people once worked in the building, and after years of being largely abandoned, thousands of people will fill it once again -- this time on their way to catch a train.
The general mail sorting facility will be transformed into a train hall, says Tim Gilchrist, president of the Moynihan Station Development Corp.
Gilchrist has been working for more than 15 years to turn the abandoned post office into a train station that will take some of the load off of Penn Station. "This will serve all of the Amtrak service throughout the northeast corridor," he tells NPR's Jacki Lyden.
Surrounded By Souls
The Farley Post Office was a self-contained city within a city, with a medical wing, photo studio, cafeteria, fitness room, even a jail for any miscreants who tried to meddle with the mail.
Parts of the building have no electricity, so Carr lights the way with his iPhone during a recent tour. On the wall of the medical center, he points out an electronic bird-repeller, which he presumes must have been used to shoo away pigeons.
The medical center was the epicenter for keeping the thousands of people in the building healthy, he says.
"You can almost feel the souls of those people still walking around today," he says. "There's so much history to it."
Footsteps echo in the dark, quiet hallways. But in a few years, the open, empty spaces will be filled with busy commuters.
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JACKI LYDEN, host:
We caught a cab over to the Farley Post Office, built in 1912 across the street from Penn Station. Another McKim, Mead and White building, now sadly gone.
The post office, however, is a vast structure, taking up two city blocks. You can still ascend its grand staircase to mail a letter, but there's very little left going on inside.
Mr. NICK CARR (Blogger, Scouting NY): I love the fact, among many, that you walk by it every day and you have absolutely no idea that 95 percent of it is completely empty. I mean, I think most...
LYDEN: That's Nick Carr. He's a film location scout and blogger. In fact, we first discovered the post office emptiness through his website, and he's agreed to come with us on a tour of the Farley Post Office's secret spaces.
Our tour guide is Tim Gilchrist.
Mr. TIM GILCHRIST: (President, Moynihan Station Development Corporation): This was the mail sorting, the general mail sorting facility. And what you're looking at right now is where the future train hall will be.
LYDEN: Gilchrist is the president of the Moynihan Station Development Corporation. We're catching this building at a moment of transition. The vast sorting hall is dim and empty now. But in a few years, after a lengthy civic struggle, it will finally be full of busy commuters.
Mr. GILCHRIST: And this will serve all of the Amtrak service throughout the Northeast Corridor.
LYDEN: Tim Gilchrist leads us deeper into the building.
Mr. GILCHRIST: What you'll see on the left here is the markings of the old jail cells when this was used by the postal inspectors.
LYDEN: Okay. So I would love to think that that's because somebody lost my personal letter from my boyfriend, but I assume why was there a jail cell, in case someone tried to hold up the post office?
Mr. GILCHRIST: Well, this is where the postal inspectors - for mail fraud, or if people were, you know, there was unfortunately a problem with an employee, or someone had assaulted an officer.
LYDEN: With 5,000 people, anything can happen.
Mr. GILCHRIST: But also, carriers worked out of here, and they were basically federal police.
LYDEN: Yeah. This is really like a city within a city, isn't it? I mean, with over 5,000 employees...
Mr. GILCHRIST: Two square blocks, safes, vaults, cafeterias, nurses' stations, medical facilities.
LYDEN: Up several clattery staircases, down an endless forest of corridors, it started to get dark. The evening sun is fading, and there's no electricity in this part of the building.
Nick Carr pulls out his iPhone to light our way to the medical wing, which didn't defend only against germs.
Mr. CARR: This, if you read real close, and I would love to know when this was built, it's the Electropel, Incorporated, electronic bird repeller. And it says 52 watts, 45 amps. And I would love to know when that was built. I can only assume it was to shoo away pigeons with the use of a little zap every once in a while. And that's just...
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. CARR: You know, you're never going to see this again. This is a one-of-a-kind piece. But to me, it's just fascinating because, you know, for a hundred years, this was the epicenter for keeping all 4,000 people healthy in this building and sort of you can almost feel like the souls of those people still walking around today. There's so much history to it.
LYDEN: Absolutely. And as we're looking out the window, you know, the sun is going down, there's two classic New York water towers framed by either window. It's just beautiful, kind of a photographer's paradise.
Up on the fourth floor, there's an annex built in 1934. Gilchrist shows us one last special glimpse of an era gone by.
Mr. GILCHRIST: The stonework that is really not visible to anybody in the public that is on part of the old Farley building just below the fifth floor roofline.
LYDEN: Beautiful. So we're looking at kind of a frieze below this copper roof on a brick wall. And peeking out just above it is, of course, the Empire State Building. What a beautiful secret classic New York scene. And it's, for right now, our secret and yours too.
In a few years when the public does come here, it'll be aboard a train, once again hurtling into a terminal designed by McKim, Mead and White.
Our thanks to Tim Gilchrist and Nick Carr. You can see some of Nick's photos of the Farley Post Office on our website, npr.org. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.
