Brooklyn General Post Office and Federal Building

Constructed from 1885 to 1891 as a combination post office, courthouse, and federal office building, this historic building is now the Downtown Brooklyn Station. An addition was built onto the north side of the building in the early 1930s and was recently renamed the Conrad B. Duberstein U.S. Bankruptcy Courthouse. The Brooklyn General Post Office and Federal Building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1974 and has been a New York City Landmark since 1966. The building still serves as a post office and federal bankruptcy courthouse.

The Brooklyn General Post Office and Federal Building is on the north side of Johnson St., east of Washington St. (now Cadman Plaza E.) and west of Adams St. (now Brooklyn Bridge Blvd.). The structure is made of gray and red granite quarried in Maine and was designed by Mifflen E. Bell of the U.S. Treasury Department. The Johnson Street entrance was the main one of the French and German Renaissance style structure with Romanesque Revival elements. The original part of the building was four stories tall.

A speedy method of transferring mail from the New York City General Post Office and the Brooklyn General Post Office was installed in 1898, the year that Brooklyn became a borough of the City of New York instead of a city. A pneumatic tube service began on August 1, 1898 and ran for 1.65 miles, including across the Brooklyn Bridge. The contractor was the New York Mail & Transportation Company, who was paid about $20,000 annually to operate the tube system. The tube delivery shortened the delivery time from 27 minutes by wagon to 4 minutes and the pneumatic mail transfer was operated about 16 hours per day. The wagon service between Brooklyn and the New York General Post Offices was reduced by 34 percent.

By 1902, an elevated railroad station was located just off of the building's southeast corner, above the intersection of Johnson and Adams. The Post Office occupied the first floor and the basement, while the second through fourth floors contained Federal Government offices. A skylight helped illuminate the fireproof building. Bowling alleys and the Columbia Theater were on the same block, to the north of the Post Office/ Federal Building.

The north addition was built from 1930 to 1933 (where the bowling alleys and theater once stood) and was designed by James Wetmore; this part of the structure is seven stories tall. The interior of the building was updated in the early 1970s to enhance fire protection and air conditioning and was remodeled again in 2000. There was a plan in the early 1990s to construct new floors including a tower in the building to provide more space for federal courts, but this was abandoned in favor of building a new courthouse and renovating the interior of the Brooklyn General Post Office. The general post office functions were moved in the late 1990s to the Spring Creek section of Brooklyn and the nearly 500,000-square foot building was largely vacant before the remodeling. The new 15-story U.S. District Courthouse was built on the block to the north, on the north side of Tillary St., from 2000 to 2006.

Allee King Rosen & Fleming. U.S. Brooklyn Court Project, Draft Environmental Impact Statement. Washington, DC. U.S. General Services Administration and U.S. Postal Service, 1996.

Rossi, J. Long Island Historical Society. Inventory Form of Historic Places for Federal Building & Post Office, 271 Cadman Plaza, East. Washington, DC. General Services Administration, 1972.

U.S. Senate. Pneumatic-tube Service Hearing before the Committee on Post Offices and Post Roads, U.S. Senate, May 9 and 11, 1916, Part 2. Washington, DC. U.S. Government, 1916.