New York's First Subway Station (and the Post Office That Shaped It!)

Ride a New York subway to the end of the line and it will eventually start heading in the other direction on the track from whence it came. On most lines this turnaround is uneventful: you sit around for several minutes and off the train goes in the other direction. But if, say, you fall asleep on the 6 train and don't get off at the last stop near the southern tip of Manhattan (at the Brooklyn Bridge – City Hall Station), you'll soon find yourself winding through the underground equivalent of a video game Easter egg as you physically loop around to head back north. Here you'll catch a glimpse of New York's first (though no longer utilized) subway station. You'll find that the station is gorgeous and utterly unique:


[Source: U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Historic American Engineering Record. Survey number HAER NY-122-49]

The platform forms part of the turnaround loop that is still used by the 6 train today. Located beneath City Hall Park, the original City Hall subway station was the southern terminus of New York's first subway and was inaugurated October 27, 1904. (New York had consolidated as as the five-borough city we know in 1898, drawing vastly more land under a single government; subways were seen as instrumental for ensuring the city's place among the world's great metropolises.) The original subway route took passengers through Midtown, Times Square, and up to the mid-140s past the Upper West Side. You can read more about the stunning station here or here.

So why publish this to a blog about post offices? Consider the unique shape of the subway station: it's an arc, and as it turns out there was a reason for this: given the space New York's original subway cars would need to turn around, there was simply no room to create a flat platform at this location. If you look at the landscape today you'd see no reason why you wouldn't be able to take as much land as you need to turn a train around underground—most of City Hall Park is open parkland. But this was not always true. During the early 1900s there was actually a huge building with a deep, solid foundation on this now-open site: the old Main Post Office for New York. Have a look, and note how the subway just avoids the [foundation of the] post office. In other words, the crescent shape of the subway station was necessary to occupy the space in question. (For the record, north is roughly rightward in this diagram.)


Source

I've superimposed the above schematic onto a Google Maps map below. The Brooklyn Bridge extends from the lower-right corner of the map. There is no trace of the old post office footprint in what is now an open grass area today.



The post office building in question, sometimes referred to during its existence as "Mullett's Monstrosity" after the architect who designed it, was constructed over the course of a decade (1869 to 1880). Designed to enable the processing of more than 100 tons of mail per day, the five-story building also housed federal courts. The building was constructed at what was then $8.5 million. It was the predecessor to the world-famous James A. Farley Post Office Building, which became (and continues to serve as) the main post office for New York. The "Monstrosity," for its part, was completed not a moment too soon; from 1844 to 1875 New York's post office had been housed in a church building constructed in 1731(!).

Here's a photo of the post office building from 1905 (source: shorpy.com, at which you could buy a full-size print if you so desire):



The building extended underground, with a "basement for sorting mail and a sub-basement for machinery" (Wikipedia). And thus it came to pass that the needs of the city's new subway would defer to footprint of the massive federal post office.

Daytonian in Manhattan has a fantastic write-up of the now-demolished federal building, featuring many images of the structure.

Gopost hits New York

USPS introduced gopost kiosks, a proprietary self-service parcel locker service, just over a year ago in the D.C. metro area. Designed to be placed in high-traffic locations and used at any time of a customer's choosing, registered users can both receive parcels from -- and deposit prepaid packages in -- secure lockers. The kiosks are imposing: they are about 20 feet long and nearly eight feet tall. The structure is gray yet modern, featuring vibrant blue and red accents and a sloped roof. The structures are freestanding, but are designed to be tamper-proof in both the front and the rear. Most importantly, the kiosks increase access to USPS services. The author also suspects that gopost kiosks are also intended to shorten lines (in postal parlance: "improve WTIL:" Wait Time in Line) at post offices with busy Inquiry windows.

Presently, most units feature 80 individual lockers in each of three sizes:
    (34) Small, which can accommodate a package as large as 12" x 15" x 3";
    (32) Medium: 12" x 15" x 6 3/4";
    (14) Large: 12" x 15" x 18 1/2".

The lockers only accept package services; one cannot deposit outgoing First-Class letters into a gopost kiosk. According to this Postal Service FAQ, any Express or Priority Mail product can be handled through gopost, in addition to any parcels that are at least 3/4" thick. The Postal Service opened about a dozen gopost units in northern Virginia early last year, with expansion into D.C. and its Maryland suburbs last fall. I ran across one kiosk last June at the South Station post office in Arlington, VA. Note that this particular unit is both accessible 24/7 and doubly protected from rain. (Indoor kiosks do not possess the curved supports or the red top.)

Arlington, Virginia's South Station post office and gopost kiosk




The first kiosk outside the D.C. metro area opened in Manhattan early February: the new unit at the Grand Central Station post office (outside Grand Central Terminal) opened to the public and saw its first customer usage on February 1. Its availability was announced by USPS New York District Manager William Schnaars at the first-day ceremony for the Express Mail-rate Grand Central Terminal stamp that afternoon. The kiosk at the Manhattanville Station on 125th Street opened soon after. A recent query to a staff member at that location suggests that the service is slowly gaining awareness and sees at least modest use.

On May 1 USPS expanded gopost to New York City's most populous borough: Brooklyn. The program was announced as a USPS Local News story a week prior. USPS Vice President Rick Uluski, USPS Triboro District Manager Frank Calabrese, and Brooklyn's legendary Borough President Marty Markowitz each spoke.

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Follows are observations and photos of each of the gopost locations in New York City.

At Grand Central Terminal's Grand Central Station post office, there can be as many as a dozen postal clerks on duty at any given time. (In fact, the operation features more staffed windows than this postal tourist has ever seen; again, that's over 5,000 post offices.) Retail hours are 7:30am—9:00pm weekdays (7:30am—1:00pm Saturday) though the lobby is open 24/7, which means that the office's gopost unit and the post office's Automated Postal Center are accessible all hours, as intended. The kiosk is instantly visible upon entry.

New York's Grand Central post office gopost kiosk


New York's Manhattanville post office gopost kiosk


West Harlem's Manhattanville Station is very busy in its own right, and featured three active retail windows plus an Inquiries staffer when I visited last month. The gopost kiosk, whose profile is visible upon entry, commands attention but is not immediately inviting. More visible is the Automated Postal Center which faces the entrance. Retail hours are 8:00am—7:00pm weekdays (8:00am—4:00pm Saturday); however, the lobby closes with the retail windows, meaning both the APC and gopost kiosk are not available at all times. This mitigates their effectiveness.

Good additional candidate post offices for gopost units in Manhattan include the Rockefeller Center Station (among USPS's most expensive leases in the country) and FDR Station (East Side hub) post offices. A kiosk might look out of place inside the General Post Office / 'JAF Station'.

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From experience, Brooklyn's Williamsburg Station post office is a reasonable location for a gopost kiosk. I say this because, in a community that has nearly doubled its residential population within the last decade, this post office is woefully overcrowded and lines can be dreadfully long. Until last year the neighborhood's postal operations were supported by a Contract Postal Unit called the Better Letter CPU, yet that was forced to close due to a bizarre provision in the most recent USPS contract with the American Postal Workers Union (APWU). You can find my full write-up of that closure here.

Essentially, anything to mitigate the wait times and provide additional postal services to the people of Williamsburg is welcome news.

Brooklyn's Williamsburg post office gopost kiosk


Retail hours for the Williamsburg post office are 9:30am—5:30pm weekdays (9:30am—4:00pm Saturday). But that doesn't matter in this instance because the gopost kiosk here is located outside. It features the red roof without the supports. From the looks of it USPS spent a lot of money implementing this unit: it recessed the barbed-wire fence (presumably sapping a couple of parking spots in the process) and flattened the sidewalk to create a sort of mini handicapped-accessible platform.



The problem with a gopost unit in Williamsburg is that the unit won't be of much use to the heavily Orthodox population, much of which considers Internet usage sinful. Ergo, they won't be able to sign onto the gopost website to create an account, nor receive emails or text messages to let them know that a package has arrived for them. I suppose the local hipster crowd would be up for a trial, however -- if they have the patience to undergo the process in order to use the system. After filling out an online form, you have to wait two weeks and bring some mailed forms and a card to a participating post office...

After [online] pre-registration, you should receive your gopost account card and packet in the mail within 7-10 days. To then activate your account, you will need to:

1. Complete the Authentication Sheet enclosed in the packet.

2. Take the Authentication Sheet to one of the Post Office™ locations listed on gopost.com/poauthentication.

3. Present one form of government-issued picture ID. (Please make sure your first and last name on your gopost account matches those on your ID.)

4. Receive a confirmation email that your registration is complete and your account has been activated.

Your new gopost card is for you only. Like a credit or debit card, only you should use your gopost card and assigned PIN. Other adult-aged (18 or over) individuals interested in using gopost may register free of charge for their own account, card, and PIN.

Yes, we get it -- this is the Postal Service's automated way of asking you the question "Does this package contain anything liquid, fragile, perishable or potentially hazardous?" But herein lies the fallacy: USPS is applying its bureaucratic processes onto what is supposed to be an entity designed for convenience. And that just won't work. The Office of the Inspector General reported, on May 6, on the results of USPS's initial gopost trial. The report found that "the Postal Service has not made any changes to its complex registration process," even after a full two-thirds of users who had initiated their registration process "gave up on their registration before finalization." Meaning, two in three people who thought they might want to utilize the system were turned off by the process needed to take part in it. Turning off two-thirds of your potential customers is never good.

The 13 original gopost kiosks experienced usage between 1 and 64 parcels per month, per unit. Not per locker; per the entire cluster of 80 lockers. Data for specific kiosks were redacted in the public OIG report.

So what does Going Postal make of it all? These gopost parcel lockers are cool, but: 1) unless they're placed in convenient locations; 2) unless people passing by can immediately figure out what the kiosks are for and why they should use them; and 3) unless the registration process is improved, then the program will be a flop.

Start spreading the news...

First off, blog hits are WAY up since I started listing on search engines. (Okay, that makes perfect sense, but I was until recently a bit shy about having everyone being able to access at this.) Apparently people have found me by Googling various items regarding Fire Island; a Congressional office has viewed my story on Bay Shore's stately Penataquit Station (currently being considered for closure); a couple of people have been interested in L'Enfant Plaza; and the recently shut-down downtown postal trailer in Freehold, New Jersey has gotten some attention of late. (Especially since the Postal Regulatory Commission shot down an appeal to keep it open. Thanks, guys.) A person apiece has been mislead by the search engines with promises of information on Minneapolis's Elmwood Station and Bardstown, Kentucky. My apologies to those folks.

So what to do today... How about some Manhattan? Haven't done that yet, really! Okay, here are some post offices of midtown New York, NY:

New York, NY: Grand Central Station Post Office*
* More precisely, the "Grand Central" post office Station at Grand Central Terminal.

Friendly office, at least when I went. It's one of a few in New York City without those obnoxious barricading glass windows. Many stations open, a supervisor to guide you. Also security personnel.

Seriously though: Do not call the actual train facilities "Grand Central Station". It's Terminal. Good, we're learning a lot today!

New York, NY: Rockefeller Center Station:

This is actually the most expensive post office lease in the country: $2 million a year to have this basement location in the heart of one of New York's premiere tourist districts. What makes absolutely no sense is that USPS recently cut back the hours to end at 5, rather than 7. If you're spending $2 million a year for this facility, why does it matter if you spend $20,000 more on clerks' salaries? Wouldn't you want to get your money's worth from this location?

Rockefeller Center's post office is also the parent station of the Appraisers Stores post office, detailed in this early Going Postal post. (The latter post office is about three blocks south of the Rockefeller Center Station.)

New York, NY: FDR Station:

A bit of a disappointing experience when I went, since all the clerks got new daters which don't say "FDR" on it, but just have their ZIP code. Boring. But this is an interesting and rather major post office, located just across the street from the what's known as the Lipstick Building [somewhat visible in the above photograph]. The lobby is open 24/7, but main postal facilities are located on the second floor, meaning you take an escalator to get to them. Can't say I've come across that before. The second floor is cavernous and features a painting from the 1980s that I was not allowed to document. Several windows open, minimal line.

Here's another photo, from just outside the front:

You can even make out a couple of people using the APC. I believe I took this photo off-hours.

New York, NY: Bryant Station
Think of the Bryant Square post office as Grand Central's little brother. Its hours are more limited but it still does a healthy business. They're physically about three blocks apart.

(So, do you get the title for this entry yet? It's both literal and a Frank Sinatra reference for New York! I'm ever so clever.)

'Appraising' an obscure office in Manhattan

Down a nondescript hallway on the fourth floor [of the 34] of 580 5th Ave., New York, lies an actual post office. There are no signs for it outside the building, and inside there's no sign of it until you physically reach its door on the hall's right-hand side. The only way to know it's there is to view its listing on USPS's online locator tool ahead of time, and ask yourself why there's a location just three blocks south of the huge Rockefeller Center PO.

A photo of the exterior of the building:

The oddest part about the Appraisers Stores post office is that you can't mail a letter there, even if you try. Shipping that book you sold on Amazon? Nope. That care package of cookies to your kid at camp? Fuhgeddaboudit. This post office serves one purpose -- to accept Registered Mail. As it turns out there's lots of it here, since this building is the heart of the Diamond District in Manhattan. Not just at the heart of the Diamond District -- the heart. Just look at the truck out front!

(Actually, the post office can also sell you some stamps -- but that's it.)

For a more detailed history of the Diamond District, a man named Stephen Kilnisan offers tours of this one city block. (An interesting read!) A full view of the building is available here, along with an architectural history of the building itself.

Appraisers Stores was the first post office I visited that requires a security check, including fingerprinting and ID scan, to get to. Although, that wasn't surprising once I realized this is the hub of diamond jeweling in New York City. Heck, that also explains why this post office exists to begin with. Consider: You have a million-dollar shipment to transport. Are you going to take it outside, walk the three blocks, and wait in line at Rockefeller Center's post office three blocks away? ... I didn't think so. You'd probably want to stay within your secure building and ship it upstairs.

I have no idea as to the specifics (and I wouldn't disclose them if I did), but I can only suspect the security precautions taken at this facility are quite high. A former supervisor with whom I started discussing stamp collecting at another post office suggested that many packages shipped from this location require private insurance, well in excess of the $25,000 maximum per package granted by USPS.

In terms of philately, one can't mail out for the Appraisers Stores postmark. Why? Because they can't actually mail it back! Only Registered Mail is accepted, so I believe this one has to be obtained in person (or possibly serviced by a supervisor at a neighboring office). You'd better be ready to prove you're a philatelist; they don't take this postmark lightly.