U.S. Post Office (Albion, New York)
Encyclopedia
The U.S. Post Office in Albion, New York, is located on South Main Street (New York State Route 98
) in the center of town. It serves the 14411 ZIP Code
, covering the village and town
of Albion plus neighboring sections of the towns of Barre
and Gaines
.
It is a brick Colonial Revival
building erected in the late 1930s. In the lobby is a mural of the nearby Erie Canal
. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places
in 1988 along with many other present and former post offices in the state. While it is within the boundaries of the Orleans County Courthouse Historic District
, it is not considered a contributing property
to that district since it was built after that district's period of significance.
residence later converted into a Colonial Revival
library; to the south is a former residence from the 1830s used now as the Cornell Cooperative Extension offices for the county. Across the intersection at the northeast corner is the First Presbyterian Church, a stone building with a 175 feet (53.3 m) steeple, the tallest structure in Orleans County
. Main Street descends slightly to the north, into Albion's other historic district
, the more commercial North Main-Bank Streets
area, ending at the New York State Barge Canal, the former route of the Erie Canal
.
The building itself is a five-bay
single-story structure on a stone water table
faced in brick. The main block has a gently sloped gable
roof, its fields finished in clapboard
. set off by a denticulated cornice
at the roofline and topped with a copper roof. It is pierced at the center by a square cupola
with quoin
s, Doric
pilaster
s at the corners framing six-over-six sash window
s and an ogival cap with weathervane. The rear wing has the cornice but is flat-roofed. It has a parapet
with limestone coping
.
Limestone
sills and lintels frame the 12-over-12 double-hung sash windows on all facade
s. A single lunette
is located in each gable field. In the east face's frieze
, bronze letters spelling out "UNITED STATES POST OFFICE" are located above the main entrance, with "ALBION" and "NEW YORK" on the brick below flanking the entrance arch
. A datestone
is at the northeast corner. Granite
steps with original iron railings and lampposts, joined by a modern wheelchair ramp
on the north, rise to the centrally located main entrance.
The entrance is flanked by two engaged fluted
Doric pilasters and columns. They support an entablature with denticulated cornice to which a later piece of wood has been affixed with metallic letters saying "ZIP 14411". Above is a blind
fanlight
with an aluminum eagle.
Inside the modern double doors open into a wooden vestibule
articulated by narrow paneled pilasters and multi-pane sash. The main lobby floor is of red and brown ceramic tile with a red border and buff wainscoting. Above that the walls and ceiling, including the cornice between them, is plaster. Many original features, including the screenline, metal grilles, lockboxes, interior doors and surrounds, two wooden customer tables, one set of lockboxes and a bulletin case. A mural
depicting ships on the canal is high on the wall above the postmaster
's office.
in 1824 through its days of prosperity as a canal town and the central shipping point for the Medina
sandstone
quarried nearby, Albion had managed to get by without its own post office building. In the early 20th century the mail was handled out of a rented storefront on East Bank Street. By the 1920s that became outmoded, and the postal authorities decided it was time for a dedicated building.
A 1931 amendment to the Public Buildings Act
of 1926 authorized the new structure as a relief measure for the Depression
. Ground was not broken until 1936, after two Greek Revival houses on the site were demolished. New York City contractors Andover & Associates built the new post office for a cost of $52,699 ($ in contemporary dollars). It opened in 1937.
Louis Simon, Supervising Architect at the Treasury Department, which had design responsibilities for most federal buildings, employed the same Colonial Revival design he had used for 12 other post offices in the state, the largest group of similar post offices across the state. This reflects both the Treasury's interest in standardization
and its preference, during the Depression, for Colonial Revival as its preferred mode. The design of Albion's post office is one of the most typical of that group, lacking some of the variations found at the others.
In 1939 Judson Smith's Along the Barge Canal mural was added to the lobby. It had been commissioned after he won one the competitions held by the Treasury's Section of Fine Arts, which oversaw the public art
in post offices at the time. Other than the replacement of the original lobby lighting with more modern equipment, there have been few changes to the building since then.
Six decades later, when the Orleans County Courthouse Historic District
, was created, its boundaries included the post office. Along with the county jail, it was one of the only two of the 35 properties in that district considered non-contributing
to its historic character since it was built after the district's 1830–1910 period of significance. When the post office was listed on the National Register itself nine years later, it remained non-contributing despite its own status.
New York State Route 98
New York State Route 98 is a state highway in the western part of New York in the United States. The southern terminus of the route is at an intersection with U.S. Route 219 in the town of Great Valley in Cattaraugus County...
) in the center of town. It serves the 14411 ZIP Code
ZIP Code
ZIP codes are a system of postal codes used by the United States Postal Service since 1963. The term ZIP, an acronym for Zone Improvement Plan, is properly written in capital letters and was chosen to suggest that the mail travels more efficiently, and therefore more quickly, when senders use the...
, covering the village and town
Albion (town), Orleans County, New York
----Albion is a town in Orleans County, New York, USA. The population was 8,042 at the 2000 census. The town was named after a village in the town....
of Albion plus neighboring sections of the towns of Barre
Barre, New York
Barre is a town in Orleans County, New York, United States. The population was 2,124 at the 2000 census. The town is named after Barre, Massachusetts.The Town of Barre is on the south border of the county.- History :...
and Gaines
Gaines, New York
Gaines is a town in Orleans County, New York, United States. The population was 3,740 at the 2000 census. The town is named after General Edmund Pendleton Gaines, who defended the area during the War of 1812....
.
It is a brick Colonial Revival
Colonial Revival architecture
The Colonial Revival was a nationalistic architectural style, garden design, and interior design movement in the United States which sought to revive elements of Georgian architecture, part of a broader Colonial Revival Movement in the arts. In the early 1890s Americans began to value their own...
building erected in the late 1930s. In the lobby is a mural of the nearby Erie Canal
Erie Canal
The Erie Canal is a waterway in New York that runs about from Albany, New York, on the Hudson River to Buffalo, New York, at Lake Erie, completing a navigable water route from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes. The canal contains 36 locks and encompasses a total elevation differential of...
. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
in 1988 along with many other present and former post offices in the state. While it is within the boundaries of the Orleans County Courthouse Historic District
Orleans County Courthouse Historic District
The Orleans County Courthouse Historic District is one of two located in downtown Albion, New York, United States. Centered around Courthouse Square, it includes many significant buildings in the village, such as its library, post office and churches from seven different denominations, one of which...
, it is not considered a contributing property
Contributing property
In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing resource or contributing property is any building, structure, or object which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic district, listed locally or federally, significant...
to that district since it was built after that district's period of significance.
Building
The post office is located on the southwest corner of the intersection of Main and East State streets in the center of Albion. Across from it is the county courthouse, screened by a small village green planted with mature trees. North of it is the Swan Library, an 1840 Greek RevivalGreek Revival architecture
The Greek Revival was an architectural movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in Northern Europe and the United States. A product of Hellenism, it may be looked upon as the last phase in the development of Neoclassical architecture...
residence later converted into a Colonial Revival
Colonial Revival architecture
The Colonial Revival was a nationalistic architectural style, garden design, and interior design movement in the United States which sought to revive elements of Georgian architecture, part of a broader Colonial Revival Movement in the arts. In the early 1890s Americans began to value their own...
library; to the south is a former residence from the 1830s used now as the Cornell Cooperative Extension offices for the county. Across the intersection at the northeast corner is the First Presbyterian Church, a stone building with a 175 feet (53.3 m) steeple, the tallest structure in Orleans County
Orleans County, New York
As of the census of 2000, there were 44,171 people, 15,363 households, and 10,846 families residing in the county. The population density was 113 people per square mile . There were 17,347 housing units at an average density of 44 per square mile...
. Main Street descends slightly to the north, into Albion's other historic district
Historic district (United States)
In the United States, a historic district is a group of buildings, properties, or sites that have been designated by one of several entities on different levels as historically or architecturally significant. Buildings, structures, objects and sites within a historic district are normally divided...
, the more commercial North Main-Bank Streets
North Main-Bank Streets Historic District
The North Main-Bank Streets Historic District is located along those streets in Albion, New York, United States. It is one of two historic districts in the village, comprising the commercial core of the village, developed during its years as a major stop on the Erie Canal...
area, ending at the New York State Barge Canal, the former route of the Erie Canal
Erie Canal
The Erie Canal is a waterway in New York that runs about from Albany, New York, on the Hudson River to Buffalo, New York, at Lake Erie, completing a navigable water route from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes. The canal contains 36 locks and encompasses a total elevation differential of...
.
The building itself is a five-bay
Bay (architecture)
A bay is a unit of form in architecture. This unit is defined as the zone between the outer edges of an engaged column, pilaster, or post; or within a window frame, doorframe, or vertical 'bas relief' wall form.-Defining elements:...
single-story structure on a stone water table
Water table
The water table is the level at which the submarine pressure is far from atmospheric pressure. It may be conveniently visualized as the 'surface' of the subsurface materials that are saturated with groundwater in a given vicinity. However, saturated conditions may extend above the water table as...
faced in brick. The main block has a gently sloped gable
Gable
A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of a sloping roof. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system being used and aesthetic concerns. Thus the type of roof enclosing the volume dictates the shape of the gable...
roof, its fields finished in clapboard
Clapboard (architecture)
Clapboard, also known as bevel siding or lap siding or weather-board , is a board used typically for exterior horizontal siding that has one edge thicker than the other and where the board above laps over the one below...
. set off by a denticulated cornice
Cornice
Cornice molding is generally any horizontal decorative molding that crowns any building or furniture element: the cornice over a door or window, for instance, or the cornice around the edge of a pedestal. A simple cornice may be formed just with a crown molding.The function of the projecting...
at the roofline and topped with a copper roof. It is pierced at the center by a square cupola
Cupola
In architecture, a cupola is a small, most-often dome-like, structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome....
with quoin
Quoin (architecture)
Quoins are the cornerstones of brick or stone walls. Quoins may be either structural or decorative. Architects and builders use quoins to give the impression of strength and firmness to the outline of a building...
s, Doric
Doric order
The Doric order was one of the three orders or organizational systems of ancient Greek or classical architecture; the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian.-History:...
pilaster
Pilaster
A pilaster is a slightly-projecting column built into or applied to the face of a wall. Most commonly flattened or rectangular in form, pilasters can also take a half-round form or the shape of any type of column, including tortile....
s at the corners framing six-over-six sash window
Sash window
A sash window or hung sash window is made of one or more movable panels or "sashes" that form a frame to hold panes of glass, which are often separated from other panes by narrow muntins...
s and an ogival cap with weathervane. The rear wing has the cornice but is flat-roofed. It has a parapet
Parapet
A parapet is a wall-like barrier at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony or other structure. Where extending above a roof, it may simply be the portion of an exterior wall that continues above the line of the roof surface, or may be a continuation of a vertical feature beneath the roof such as a...
with limestone coping
Coping (architecture)
Coping , consists of the capping or covering of a wall.A splayed or wedge coping slopes in a single direction; a saddle coping slopes to either side of a central high point....
.
Limestone
Limestone
Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....
sills and lintels frame the 12-over-12 double-hung sash windows on all facade
Facade
A facade or façade is generally one exterior side of a building, usually, but not always, the front. The word comes from the French language, literally meaning "frontage" or "face"....
s. A single lunette
Lunette
In architecture, a lunette is a half-moon shaped space, either filled with recessed masonry or void. A lunette is formed when a horizontal cornice transects a round-headed arch at the level of the imposts, where the arch springs. If a door is set within a round-headed arch, the space within the...
is located in each gable field. In the east face's frieze
Frieze
thumb|267px|Frieze of the [[Tower of the Winds]], AthensIn architecture the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Even when neither columns nor pilasters are expressed, on an astylar wall it lies upon...
, bronze letters spelling out "UNITED STATES POST OFFICE" are located above the main entrance, with "ALBION" and "NEW YORK" on the brick below flanking the entrance arch
Arch
An arch is a structure that spans a space and supports a load. Arches appeared as early as the 2nd millennium BC in Mesopotamian brick architecture and their systematic use started with the Ancient Romans who were the first to apply the technique to a wide range of structures.-Technical aspects:The...
. A datestone
Datestone
A datestone is typically an embedded stone with the date of engraving and other information carved into it. They are not considered a very reliable source for dating a house, as instances of old houses being destroyed and rebuilt have been reported.Specific locations have often been chosen for...
is at the northeast corner. Granite
Granite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...
steps with original iron railings and lampposts, joined by a modern wheelchair ramp
Wheelchair ramp
A wheelchair ramp is an inclined plane installed in addition to or instead of stairs. Ramps permit wheelchair users, as well as people pushing strollers, carts, or other wheeled objects, to more easily access a building....
on the north, rise to the centrally located main entrance.
The entrance is flanked by two engaged fluted
Fluting (architecture)
Fluting in architecture refers to the shallow grooves running vertically along a surface.It typically refers to the grooves running on a column shaft or a pilaster, but need not necessarily be restricted to those two applications...
Doric pilasters and columns. They support an entablature with denticulated cornice to which a later piece of wood has been affixed with metallic letters saying "ZIP 14411". Above is a blind
Blind arch
A blind arch is an arch found in the wall of a building which has been infilled with solid construction so it cannot serve as a passageway, door, or window. The term is most often associated with masonry wall construction, but is also found in other types of construction such as light frame...
fanlight
Fanlight
A fanlight is a window, semicircular or semi-elliptical in shape, with glazing bars or tracery sets radiating out like an open fan, It is placed over another window or a doorway. and is sometimes hinged to a transom. The bars in the fixed glazed window spread out in the manner a sunburst...
with an aluminum eagle.
Inside the modern double doors open into a wooden vestibule
Vestibule (architecture)
A vestibule is a lobby, entrance hall, or passage between the entrance and the interior of a building.The same term can apply to structures in modern or ancient roman architecture. In modern architecture vestibule typically refers to a small room or hall between an entrance and the interior of...
articulated by narrow paneled pilasters and multi-pane sash. The main lobby floor is of red and brown ceramic tile with a red border and buff wainscoting. Above that the walls and ceiling, including the cornice between them, is plaster. Many original features, including the screenline, metal grilles, lockboxes, interior doors and surrounds, two wooden customer tables, one set of lockboxes and a bulletin case. A mural
Mural
A mural is any piece of artwork painted or applied directly on a wall, ceiling or other large permanent surface. A particularly distinguishing characteristic of mural painting is that the architectural elements of the given space are harmoniously incorporated into the picture.-History:Murals of...
depicting ships on the canal is high on the wall above the postmaster
Postmaster
A postmaster is the head of an individual post office. Postmistress is not used anymore in the United States, as the "master" component of the word refers to a person of authority and has no gender quality...
's office.
History
From its designation as the new county's seatCounty seat
A county seat is an administrative center, or seat of government, for a county or civil parish. The term is primarily used in the United States....
in 1824 through its days of prosperity as a canal town and the central shipping point for the Medina
Medina, New York
Medina is a village in the towns of Shelby and Ridgeway in Orleans County, New York, United States. The population was 6,415 at the 2000 census, making it the second most populous municipality in the county after Albion, the county seat. The village was named by its surveyor...
sandstone
Sandstone
Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains.Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any colour, but the most common colours are tan, brown, yellow,...
quarried nearby, Albion had managed to get by without its own post office building. In the early 20th century the mail was handled out of a rented storefront on East Bank Street. By the 1920s that became outmoded, and the postal authorities decided it was time for a dedicated building.
A 1931 amendment to the Public Buildings Act
Public Buildings Act
The Public Buildings Act of 1926, also known as the Elliot-Fernald Act, was a statute which governed the construction of federal buildings throughout the United States, and authorized funding for this construction. Its primary sponsor in the House of Representatives was Representative Richard N...
of 1926 authorized the new structure as a relief measure for the Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
. Ground was not broken until 1936, after two Greek Revival houses on the site were demolished. New York City contractors Andover & Associates built the new post office for a cost of $52,699 ($ in contemporary dollars). It opened in 1937.
Louis Simon, Supervising Architect at the Treasury Department, which had design responsibilities for most federal buildings, employed the same Colonial Revival design he had used for 12 other post offices in the state, the largest group of similar post offices across the state. This reflects both the Treasury's interest in standardization
Standardization
Standardization is the process of developing and implementing technical standards.The goals of standardization can be to help with independence of single suppliers , compatibility, interoperability, safety, repeatability, or quality....
and its preference, during the Depression, for Colonial Revival as its preferred mode. The design of Albion's post office is one of the most typical of that group, lacking some of the variations found at the others.
In 1939 Judson Smith's Along the Barge Canal mural was added to the lobby. It had been commissioned after he won one the competitions held by the Treasury's Section of Fine Arts, which oversaw the public art
Public art
The term public art properly refers to works of art in any media that have been planned and executed with the specific intention of being sited or staged in the physical public domain, usually outside and accessible to all...
in post offices at the time. Other than the replacement of the original lobby lighting with more modern equipment, there have been few changes to the building since then.
Six decades later, when the Orleans County Courthouse Historic District
Orleans County Courthouse Historic District
The Orleans County Courthouse Historic District is one of two located in downtown Albion, New York, United States. Centered around Courthouse Square, it includes many significant buildings in the village, such as its library, post office and churches from seven different denominations, one of which...
, was created, its boundaries included the post office. Along with the county jail, it was one of the only two of the 35 properties in that district considered non-contributing
Contributing property
In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing resource or contributing property is any building, structure, or object which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic district, listed locally or federally, significant...
to its historic character since it was built after the district's 1830–1910 period of significance. When the post office was listed on the National Register itself nine years later, it remained non-contributing despite its own status.