Old Post Office

Now home to the City Campus of SUNY Erie, the Old Post Office building is one of Buffalo's most iconic landmarks. Completed in 1901 after four years of construction, it was built with granite and designed in the Gothic style with elements of the Romanesque Revival and Chateaueque styles. The six-story building features a 244-foot tall tower, double-arched windows, and numerous hand-carved stone embellishments including gargoyles, crocketed spires, finials, animal heads (including bisons), and eagles. Inside, the building features terrazzo floors, groin vaults, glazed brick and terra cotta moldings, stained glass windows. The center of the building is an atrium covered by a frosted glass skylight and designed like a Venetian-palazzo. The college acquired the building in 1981.

The city's first post office was founded in 1804 and was located in a tavern on Exchange Street. The first permanent post office location opened in 1837 in a former Baptist church. It is not clear whether it remained in use until the Old Post Office was built in 1901.

The Office of the Supervising Architect, which was a federal agency responsible for designing federal government buildings, created the original design of the building around 1894. At the time the agency was led by Supervising Architect Jeremiah O'Rourke, who served in that role from April 1893 to September 1894 and may have designed the post office himself. The next two supervising architects, William M. Aiken and James Knox Taylor, made additional changes to the design. The building was dedicated on March 20, 1901 and the event was attended by the postmaster general and local businessmen. To further celebrate the opening of the post office, the postmaster general symbolically mailed a letter to President William McKinley written by local postal workers that said “Our Pan-American obligation to show the Western world a high standard of postal service must be honored.” The building also housed various federal department offices.

Post office operations moved to a new building in 1963 and the federal offices relocated to another new building in 1971. In 1972, the former post office was added to the National Register of Historic Places. However, by the early 1970s, many thought it an eyesore as it was covered in soot and not worth saving. Two local county legislators disagreed and believed it could be used as a college campus. Thanks to their efforts, the building was saved and restored. Erie Community College, which is now called SUNY Erie, bought it in 1981.

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"O'Rourke, Jeremiah (1833 - 1915)." Philadelphia Architects and Buildings. Accessed June 29, 2022. https://www.philadelphiabuildings.org/pab/app/ar_display.cfm/643925.

Price, Denise. Explore Buffalo Building Profile: Old Post Office. https://www.buffalorising.com/2020/05/explore-buffalo-building-profile-old-post-office. May 15, 2022. https://www.buffalorising.com/2020/05/explore-buffalo-building-profile-old-post-office.

Slade, Susan R. "United States Post Office." Historic American Buildings Survey. September 1973. https://memory.loc.gov/master/pnp/habshaer/ny/ny0200/ny0209/data/ny0209data.pdf.