Old Post Office, building in Albany, New York, USA
The Old Post Office is a dark gray granite building in downtown Albany with three main stories and four corner towers in Renaissance Revival style. Its facade features rounded-arch windows and doors, decorative stone bands, mansard roof sections, and pointed roofs on the corner towers that rise four to five stories high.
The government decided in 1872 to build a new post office, but financial and land constraints led architect James G. Hill to redesign the original Gothic plan into the more modest Renaissance Revival style. The cornerstone was laid in 1879, and the building opened in 1883 at a cost of about 620,000 dollars as a center for postal and federal operations.
The building displays shields and stars carved into its stone, symbols of the United States government. These decorations show how much importance federal authority placed on this structure when it first opened.
The building sits at the corner of State Street and Broadway in downtown Albany, less than 500 feet from the Hudson River with good road connections and nearby parking. The flat terrain and proximity to other historic structures and a small park make the area easy to navigate on foot.
The building was originally planned with an elaborate Gothic design spanning two decades of planning before financial reality forced a complete redesign into the simpler Renaissance Revival style. This transformation shows how practical constraints shaped architectural ambition yet still resulted in a structurally sound and visually respectable building.
The community of curious travelers
AroundUs brings together thousands of curated places, local tips, and hidden gems, enriched daily by 60,000 contributors worldwide.
