Look Up: Taking Your Taxes To This Tiny Window In Brooklyn

Image via Complex Original

Though it’s not the central sorting facility it once was, the U.S. Post Office still operates a small window in downtown Brooklyn (271 Cadman Plaza) that will be open until 8 p.m. this Tuesday to accept your last-minute tax filings. The U.S. General Post Office was constructed in 1891 as both a federal courthouse and postal headquarters for the then independent city of Brooklyn. The architect, Mifflin E. Bell, designed the building in the prevalent Romanesque Revival style to have four courtrooms in addition to the main postal facilities. 

By 1933 the need for additional space required a seven-storey addition, which filled the rest of the block to the north. Two additional courtrooms were added, along with the central mail distribution equipment. Despite being seven stories, the addition isn’t significantly taller due to the shallower floor-to-floor heights. 

The building was designated a New York City Landmark in 1966, and listed with the National Register of Historic Places in 1974, but by 1990, the building was mostly vacant. The courts were the first to move, going in the late-’60s, and then the sorting facilities were relocated to Long Island for larger truck transport, leaving only the small retail postal window. 

The General Services Administration eventually acquired the site and, after their initial plans to demolish it were defeated, decided to expand the building with new offices for the Bankruptcy Court. Renaming the building the Conrad B. Duberstein U.S. Bankruptcy Courthouse, they hired the firm of Kliment and Halsband to restore and reconfigure the building. The project began in late 1999 and is still underway.

Despite the delays, the parts of the original south building that have been restored and completed are worth a closer look. The stubby tower on the southwest corner anchors the site and visually connects the building to the other adjacent civic structures. 

The ornamentation on both the tower and building oscillates between intricate lacy carvings and heavier compositions of repeating columns and other substantial masses. The polished rose-colored granite columns supporting the arched windows on the southern facade are short, typical of the Romanesque style. 

The upper windows are framed by long slender columns and a much thinner arch, which give the building a lightness. Interestingly, some of these arches are glazed, while others are in-filled with ornamental traceries. The large central arch above the southern entrance spans three smaller arches and is bracketed with large semicircular protruding shafts from the building that also are off balance because of the window patterning. 

And atop everything, a bald eagle spreads its wings gracefully. 

A closer look at the windows, both lacy and heavy.

By incorporating lightness into the columns, the building has both substance and poise.