Neither Snow nor Rain nor Heat nor Gloom of Night…

The three-story U.S. Terminal Railway Post Office -- which we usually just call the Post Office Building – is immediately adjacent to the Mail & Baggage Building. Not only was it designed in the same architectural style as its next-door neighbor, but it was also built with the same materials!

Construction began in 1929 – after the Central Terminal opened! -- and was completed the following year. It has a flat roof that held a central row of monitor lights. Out of sight from your current position is a track spur that ran along its south façade, where there was a long, concrete loading platform. With this arrangement, mail could be moved directly between the building’s sixteen bays and the rail cars that pulled up alongside the building. Mail from Buffalo residents was sent all over the country via rail, while Postal Service workers processed mail that came in.

Our Post Office Building worked closely with its downtown counterpart. Buffalo’s original post office – what we today call the Old Post Office – opened in 1901. The highly ornamented Gothic Revival building on Ellicott Street was the city’s only major postal office until ours opened in 1930. The Old Post Office, which closed in 1963 when the William Street Post Office was built, now houses SUNY Erie’s downtown college campus.

Something fun to think about is how our Central Terminal and the Post Office kept Buffalonians connected to family and friends nationwide. This was, after all, before World War II: No internet, no email, no social media, no cell phones. Fewer than 45 percent of U.S. households even owned a home telephone. The most dependable way to contact friends and family was to go there, or to send a letter!

The Post Office Building is owned by the City of Buffalo, which also owns the Railway Express Building and the surrounding 16.5 acres.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.