Donate
Copyright © 2026 VPM, all rights reserved.
PBS is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization.
Donate
VPM News Morning Edition
NEXT UP: 9:00 AM

Thanks to our sponsors – Become a Sponsor

NPR News

Photo Gallery: The Nine Lives Of Old Post Offices

VPM | By NPR
Published November 24, 2010 at 7:28 PM EST
Updated April 20, 2023
Hotel Monaco — Washington, D.C.: Built on the former site of Blodgett's Hotel, the General Post Office in Washington, D.C., was originally home to the Post Office Department, a forerunner of the U.S. Postal Service. It was in this building that Postmaster General Montgomery Blair first proposed the idea of home delivery in 1862. Today, it is again used exclusively as a hotel.
Coburn Dukehart / NPR / Researched by Jo Ella Straley
Hotel Monaco — Washington, D.C.: Built on the former site of Blodgett's Hotel, the General Post Office in Washington, D.C., was originally home to the Post Office Department, a forerunner of the U.S. Postal Service. It was in this building that Postmaster General Montgomery Blair first proposed the idea of home delivery in 1862. Today, it is again used exclusively as a hotel.
Farley Post Office/Moynihan Station – New York City: Business, political and civic leaders in New York City gathered in 2007 to announce support for plan to turn the Farley Post Office into a train station. The building bears the inscription, "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds" — a paraphrasing from Herodotus' Histories, often falsely cited as the Postal Service's motto.
Susan Watts / NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images / Researched by Jo Ella Straley
Farley Post Office/Moynihan Station – New York City: Business, political and civic leaders in New York City gathered in 2007 to announce support for plan to turn the Farley Post Office into a train station. The building bears the inscription, "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds" — a paraphrasing from Herodotus' Histories, often falsely cited as the Postal Service's motto.
1 / 2

Copyright 2010 NPR

Tags

NPR News
Related Stories