James A. Farley Building

421 8th Avenue | also 398 9th Avenue, 370 West 33rd Street, 380 West 33rd Street | Hudson Yards | built 1913

Open on the map13 entries

Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

  1. 1908

    McKim, Mead & White wins the design competition for the new post office

    The federal government holds a design competition under the Tarsney Act for a new General Post Office, drawing entries from firms including Carrere & Hastings, Heins & LaFarge, and Cass Gilbert. McKim, Mead & White wins with a Beaux-Arts scheme led by William Mitchell Kendall, setting the design for the block-long building that rises across from Penn Station.

    Source: Wikipedia

  2. 1910

    November 27

    The first mail reaches the unfinished post office through Penn Station's mail platform

    Construction of Pennsylvania Station across the street moved faster than the post office. When the station officially opened on November 27, 1910, the still-incomplete post office received its first mail by way of the mail platform. The $2.5 million contract to build the post office itself went to the George A. Fuller Company in March 1911.

    “The as-yet-incomplete Penn Station post office saw its first mail, delivered through the mail platform, when the station officially opened on November 27, 1910.”

    Source: Wikipedia

  3. 1912

    The Treasury Department selects the post office's Herodotus inscription

    Officials choose a line adapted from the Greek historian Herodotus describing ancient Persian mounted couriers to carve above the building's Eighth Avenue colonnade. The phrase becomes known informally as the postal service's creed, even though it has never been an official motto of the Post Office Department or its successors.

    Source: Wikipedia

  4. 1914

    September 5

    The General Post Office opens across from Penn Station

    Designed by McKim, Mead & White, with William Mitchell Kendall as lead architect, the Beaux-Arts post office was built from 1911 and opened on September 5, 1914. The building carries the postal inscription beginning "Neither snow nor rain," adapted from Herodotus's description of Persian messengers and chosen in 1912. The building became a city landmark in 1966.

    Source: Wikipedia

  5. 1914

    September

    A mail-handling room an acre in size sits under a glass ceiling with no visible columns

    Behind the delivery offices, the mail-handling room covered an acre beneath a wired-glass ceiling 206 feet long and 160 feet wide, with no visible supporting columns. Below, equipment moved huge quantities of mail to and from the trains, and a $350,000 pneumatic tube system sent 100-pound mail bags between Grand Central and the building. The post office had 1,667 employees in September 1914 and space for nearly twice as many.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  6. 1934

    The post office doubles in size under Postmaster General James A. Farley

    In 1934, during the Great Depression, the post office was enlarged to twice its size while James A. Farley was Postmaster General. McKim, Mead and White's design was carried west to Ninth Avenue almost seamlessly, so that the building came to fill the full length of the block between Eighth and Ninth Avenues. The post office was later renamed for Farley.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  7. 1935

    Senator Huey Long accuses Postmaster General Farley of getting favorable treatment while the annex is built

    While the annex was going up, the General Builders Supply Corporation, Farley's building materials company, held a federal contract under the Hoover administration to provide materials. Senator Huey Long charged that Farley received preferential treatment from the Roosevelt administration. The Senate cleared Farley of wrongdoing in what became known as the Long-Farley Affair of 1935, and the annex opened that December.

    “Farley was accused by U.S. senator Huey Long of receiving preferential treatment from the Roosevelt administration, but the Senate cleared him of any wrongdoing…”

    Source: Wikipedia

  8. 1966

    May 17

    The city designates the post office building a landmark

    The Landmarks Preservation Commission designates the General Post Office, later renamed for James A. Farley, an individual New York City landmark. The designation protects McKim, Mead & White's colonnade seven years before the building's addition to the National Register of Historic Places.

    Source: Wikipedia

  9. 1982

    The post office is renamed for Postmaster General James A. Farley

    In 1982 the Penn Station post office was dedicated as the James A. Farley Building, honoring the Postmaster General who had expanded it in the 1930s. Until the Great Recession of 2009, it was the only post office in New York City open around the clock.

    Source: Wikipedia

  10. 2001

    The post office becomes a backup for the Church Street Station after September 11

    After the September 11 attacks in 2001, the Farley post office stood in for the Church Street Station Post Office, which was across from the World Trade Center complex. The building proved important in keeping mail service going across the New York metropolitan area.

    Source: Wikipedia

  11. 2006

    New York State buys the post office building for conversion

    The state acquires the Farley Building as part of a long-planned project to convert its underused mail-sorting floors into a new train hall for Amtrak and Long Island Rail Road passengers. The purchase sets in motion the redevelopment that eventually opens as Moynihan Train Hall in 2021.

    Source: Wikipedia

  12. 2009

    The Eighth Avenue windows lose their status as the city's only round-the-clock post office counters

    Before 2009 the public windows on Eighth Avenue were the only post office windows in New York City open around the clock. Writing in 2023, Kevin Walsh of Forgotten New York noted that the windows look as they always have, while the post office's other functions had moved to the Morgan Processing and Distribution Center at Ninth Avenue and West 29th Street.

    Source: Forgotten New York

  13. 2021

    January 1

    Moynihan Train Hall opens inside the old post office

    On January 1, 2021, Moynihan Train Hall opened in the former mail sorting area, giving Penn Station passengers a new concourse across Eighth Avenue. The hall covers about 255,000 square feet under a 92-foot glass skylight, with retail space around it.

    Source: Wikipedia

Further reading

Nearby

All 27 buildings with stories in Hudson Yards