DNA reports: "The Old Chelsea Station at 217 W. 18th St., which was built in 1937 and landed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986, is on the chopping block, the USPS announced in a letter posted in the station." The building is for sale and will pass out of federal ownership--meaning it's going from public to private. Meaning, let's face it, luxury condos and upscale retail.
I remember, as a kid living way out in the sticks, mailing some of my depressing little poems to a poetry journal with a P.O. box at Old Chelsea Station. I didn't realize that name was a post office, and I thought that "Old Chelsea Station" was a train station, like Grand Central Station, and I imagined that the poetry editor somehow lived in this train station in the middle of New York City, which seemed very weird and wonderful. Later, when I encountered the post office for the first time, I realized that this is where all those poems of mine had ended up and not at a train station at all.
So I have this odd fondness for it. Also, the post office boasts some lovely bas-relief murals of animals in the forest.
Romy at Walkers in the City wrote about their artist, Paul Fiene:
"He had his studio upstate in Woodstock, New York, and the two panels, called 'Deer' and 'Bear,' are bas-relief cast stone covered in silver leaf, made in 1938 for Old Chelsea Station, which was built in 1935. I read that Paul Fiene had studied at the Beaux Arts Institute to Design here in New York, and that he won first prize in a life class in 1917. Then he won the Prix de Rome, which he had to decline because he didn’t have enough money to get to Rome to accept the prize, and I imagine that he must have been very disappointed. But he must have been very happy to get the commission to create two works of art to decorate this Manhattan post office. Imagining a post office built during the depression and decorated with money set aside for just that purpose having to close for lack of funds made me feel very sad."
If this P.O. goes, you and I might never see those bears and those deer again. They will become private property for those who can afford to enjoy them. And the community will lose a valuable public space.
People are fighting this sale. If you'd like to speak your mind about it, please do so at tonight's CB4 Full Board Meeting, 6:30 p.m., at Hotel Trades Council Auditorium, 305 W. 44th Street.
18 comments:
@#@! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! IT WOULD TAKE A JACKIE KENNEDY TO STOP THIS ONE. Damn. Damn. Damn.
When I worked at Grove Press one of our warehouses was on 20th St and 11th Ave. I used to go there and pack up the books that were on order, taking them to the 18th St post office. I'd always get a remark from the PO employees, who sniggered and say, "Here come more porn." I always answer back, "That's 'literary' porn, you know, there's a difference." They'd stamp my parcels and call out, "Get a load of this, it's literary, haha!" And that was until I had to make another drop off at the PO and repeat my explanation, "Literary porn."
An early example of this happened years ago with the Prince St. PO in Soho. First they turned it into a fucking Pottery Barn, and now of course it's the-golly gee whiz hooray-Apple Store!! Yay! Where everyone goes to repeat the consumption cycle of digital products now that the tech industry has figured out a way to force people to buy things with the introduction of constantly updated software. Yay! And no one seems to care, they just want to consume and talk to cool-hipster sales geeks and shop in a place that looks like a giant refrigerator.
"...And I say to myself what a won-der-ful world".
Mail? Fuck that!
Anyway...
Post offices are MISERABLE! M I S E R A B L E. When has anyone been excited to go to the post office? NEVER.
The employees are rude, the business model is dated as f*ck, and the mail carriers always put the wrong mail in your box. The only people that should be annoyed by this are those living in its vicinity that now have to go elsewhere to mail packages or buy the occasional stamp.
Very sad.
I worked, for a brief while in the late '80s, at R.R. Bowker publishing services. The back of our building was directly across from the Old Chelsea post office. Many was the time, in those pre-email days, that our managing editors would send us scurrying through the piles of books on the 18th St. loading docks and across the street to the post office just before closing to send some vitally important document or another out to "corporate" in Boston. I remember fleeting glimpses of what was clearly a beautiful building, even under the layers of government-drab paint.
Speaking of government, many of the cutbacks at the Postal Service right now are the direct result of some very unreasonable financial demands placed on USPS by the Republican-controlled Congress. Many of these congressmen are much more interested in scoring anti-government ideological points, and pleasing their campaign contributors from the big private parcel delivery companies, than they are in actually trying to provide the public a decent level of service.
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis died for our sins.
Technically, Grand Central Station is a post office as well. The place where the trains go is called Grand Central Terminal. (This played a role in the Spike Lee movie Inside Man.)
I love going to the post office. If there is a line, I read a book. Old Chelsea Station has been my PO for so long, thinking of its closing is like knowing someone I love is close to dying. There are some rude post office people for sure, but there are mostly real sweethearts at Old Chelsea Station. I will miss them very much if the PO closes.
Two references to the Old Chelsea Station for me today:
http://www.rrauction.com/preview_itemdetail.cfm?IN=406
Sad to see it go, but that post office was awful. I avoided it although I worked close by for years.
@Jeramiah: I'm not sure how the space will become less public if it becomes retail/residential. The PO lets you in the lobby itself but shuts off the rest of the building. Any store would likely let you see the murals. What would you have them do with the building?
@Minigusal: The Republican-controlled Congress? Is there a Congress I don't know about. The one in Washington is divided, with Republicans controlling the house and Democrats controlling the Senate. The USPS, while technically non-partisan, is run by a career Democrat. I'm not saying there's no argument for providing more subsidy to the USPS, but neither party is making it.
I recently moved from my apt of many years on Tenth & 23rd, my landlord won a lawsuit contending my apt was no longer rent stabilized. My Grandmother was born in 1890 in the apt above the stable that was the WPA Theater. My great-Grandfather was the carriage driver for the Moore family. My Dad was born in an apartment on the third floor over the defunct Hitchman Hardware (now Bottino). My Dad and his 5 brothers all worked on the docks until WWII. All enlisted in the Marine Corps. I was drafted in 1968 during the Vietnam "Conflict". I have been a lucky man my entire life. I have relocated to an awesome apartment so far north in Manhattan—I feel as if I live in Canada. Rent stabilized—half the rent I was paying in Chelsea. I know change is inevitable, having dealt with it all my life. What is the difference between me & my family and the serfs or tenants on leased land in Medieval Europe? Not much—it has been ever thus. Am I bitter? Maybe a little. Fuck the High Line, Fuck Old Chelsea Station. Let'em have it. The soul that made Chelsea a destination is extinguished. Forever.
There is something funky going on with that block. First Walker Tower, then that office building next door going towards 8th Ave with the neon numbered lobby. Seems there has been construction going on in ground floor space forever. The whole building where Barney's Co-op is located is going to be renovated.
Maybe they'll build an ugly glass tower on top of the post office and keep that as the lobby. You know "Art deco ambiance with 21st century amenities!"
I have used this PO for years and find it one of the best. Nice employees, fairly short lines that move rather quickly (except at the end of the day when small businesses in the area send delivery people with huge piles of tiny boxes that can take 1/2 hr. each to post). But the rest of the day, A-OK. Why do the good get closed?
I was just in there today, and must have missed the flyers announcing it was closing and on the chopping block. Ugh! I did pass the Barney's Coop, and a guy working there told me they would only be open from February 14 through the 20th or 21st, something like that, mostly men's clothes, and after that, they were gone forever. All for what will likely be high-end boutiques, restaurants, coffee shops, and luxury condos. The hypergentrification and mall-ization of Manhattan continues apace. And don't forget the Hudson Yards development that's coming too, in the 30s. It promises "affordable" housing for residents--affordable for BILLIONAIRES!
Anonymous 925- I'm not sure you understand the post- it is talking about a place of beautiful architecture and history (in fact it is on the National Register of Historic Places)being sold to private developers so we can have....more f'ing condos and crap boutiques! Although we are saddened that places of utility are being phased out, It has nothing to do with whether you like your postal carrier.
@Andrew Smith. Yes, Republican-controlled Congress. The one in Washington, yes. In case you haven't noticed, the Democrats don't exactly have control over the Senate either (despite the expressed will of the voters), since, in the absence of a Democratic super-majority, the Republicans simply filibuster anything they don't approve of.
Which is beside my point though, because I'm not talking about the current Congress, nor am I talking about an increased subsidy for the post office. I am talking about the crippling "pension payments", well over those paid by any other business in the country, that were mandated by Congress several years ago, with the intent of financially crippling the USPS.
Not to be chopped but not to remain the same:
http://chelseanow.com/2013/12/old-chelsea-station-wont-close-but-it-may-change/
I too would like to know whether the murals are and will be open to the public.
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