62. US Post Office--Church Street Station
A.K.A.: Federal Office Building
Location: 90 Church Street
Built: 1935
Architect: Cross & Cross; Pennington, Lewis & Mills, Inc.
National Register Number: 88002359
Listed: May 11, 1989
Visited: April 13, 2008
In all weather save the worst, I could see it from my office in Tower Two: a block wide, and wider than tall; a cruise ship sailing through downtown Manhattan. Or a patch of desert. I have memories, possibly false ones, of its life from the street, the sun bearing down on expanses of limestone unrelieved save for air vents. Its blankness sucked the life out of the immediate vicinity, maybe even more than the monoliths across the street. People would walk by and not stop and not look up at the thing, at least on the Vesey Street side, because there was so little for the eye to focus on. Church Street was where the life was, with a few vendors of books and fruit mucking up traffic past and inside the entrances; inside the entrances, more confusion, more life, a warren of corridors and windows and lines.
It is something Art Deco, something Classical, but also neither: no fluted columns, no formal razzle-dazzle. It feels incomplete to me. The monumentality of its scale suggests a much taller building than is actually there. What happened to that building, I wonder.
Location: 90 Church Street
Built: 1935
Architect: Cross & Cross; Pennington, Lewis & Mills, Inc.
National Register Number: 88002359
Listed: May 11, 1989
Visited: April 13, 2008
In all weather save the worst, I could see it from my office in Tower Two: a block wide, and wider than tall; a cruise ship sailing through downtown Manhattan. Or a patch of desert. I have memories, possibly false ones, of its life from the street, the sun bearing down on expanses of limestone unrelieved save for air vents. Its blankness sucked the life out of the immediate vicinity, maybe even more than the monoliths across the street. People would walk by and not stop and not look up at the thing, at least on the Vesey Street side, because there was so little for the eye to focus on. Church Street was where the life was, with a few vendors of books and fruit mucking up traffic past and inside the entrances; inside the entrances, more confusion, more life, a warren of corridors and windows and lines.
It is something Art Deco, something Classical, but also neither: no fluted columns, no formal razzle-dazzle. It feels incomplete to me. The monumentality of its scale suggests a much taller building than is actually there. What happened to that building, I wonder.
Labels: Cross and Cross, Pennington Lewis and Mills, Post Office, Tribeca
posted by Michael at
2:28 AM
1 Comments:
Gotta love the WPA era architecture. Art Deco eagles, soaring everywhere!
Post a Comment
<< Home