United States Post Office (Spring Valley, New York) facts for kids
Quick facts for kids |
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U.S. Post Office
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East elevation, 2008
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 Location in New York
Location in the United States
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| Location | Spring Valley, NY |
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| Nearest city | Hackensack, NJ |
| Area | less than one acre |
| Built | 1936 |
| Architect | Simon, Louis A.; Etnier, Stephen |
| Architectural style | Colonial Revival |
| MPS | US Post Offices in New York State, 1858-1943, TR |
| NRHP reference No. | 88002432 |
| Added to NRHP | May 11, 1989 |
The U.S. Post Office in Spring Valley, New York, is a cool brick building on North Madison Street. It was built in the mid-1930s and helps deliver mail to everyone in the Spring Valley area (ZIP Code 10977).
This post office has a special design called Colonial Revival. It's unique because it really shows off the older Greek Revival style. Inside, like many other post offices built during the New Deal era, you'll find a beautiful piece of public art – a mural! In 1989, this building was added to the National Register of Historic Places, which means it's an important historical site.
Contents
The Post Office Building
The Spring Valley Post Office is located on the west side of North Madison Avenue. It sits between Church Street and Commerce Street, just one block west of North Main Street (New York State Route 45) in downtown Spring Valley. This area is busy with lots of shops and parking lots. You might also spot a few churches and houses nearby. The ground here gently slopes down towards a small stream that flows into Pascack Brook.
Behind the building, you'll see a line of tall, old trees. To the south is the post office's own parking lot. There's also a public parking lot across the street. A small, empty lot sits on the corner of Church Street. Behind the post office building, there's a tire shop.
Building Design and Features
The post office building has two main parts. The front part is a one-story building made with a steel frame. It has five sections (called "bays") on the front and five on the side. It sits on a low stone base, and its walls are made of red bricks. The middle three sections of the front have a gently sloped roof with a triangular top, called a gable. On the back, there's a covered area for loading and unloading mail.
On the front of the building (the east side), the three middle sections stick out a little bit. The main entrance is in a slightly set-back, round-arched doorway. On either side of the entrance are windows that look similar. These windows have two parts that slide up and down, with a decorative window above them that has spokes like a wheel. Four brick columns, called pilasters, with simple stone tops, divide the sections and mark the corners. These columns hold up a wooden band, or frieze, which has the words "United States Post Office Spring Valley New York 10977" in metal letters. Above this band is the triangular top, or pediment.
The two side sections of the building have flat roofs. You can see brick chimneys on them with metal air vents. On the front, these side sections each have one window with six panes of glass on the top and six on the bottom. The back of the building looks similar to the front, with three large windows.
Stone steps lead up to the main entrance. There's also a wheelchair ramp on the north side for easy access. The original metal railings and one original lamppost are still there, though the lamppost has been changed a little. The main entrance itself has fancy wooden decorations. It has half-columns and side windows that go up to a decorative band with vertical grooves. A half-circle window with radiating spokes sits above the entrance.
Inside, modern aluminum doors open into a small entry area, or vestibule. This leads into an L-shaped lobby. The floor in one part of the lobby is made of terrazzo (a mix of chips and cement), and the other part has vinyl flooring. A gray marble border runs along the bottom of the walls. Columns mark the corners of the lobby. A decorative border runs along the top of the walls where they meet the plaster ceiling. The original lights have been replaced with modern fluorescent ones. There's also an original wooden border above the teller windows, which have been made wider and now have blue plastic (Formica) around them.
The Mural: Waiting for the Mail
Above the door to the postmaster's office, you'll find a special mural called Waiting for the Mail. It was painted by Stephen Etnier. This mural has three parts. One part shows the wing of an airplane, another shows a person waiting by a fence, and the third shows the front of a ship. This artwork was cleaned and fixed up in the mid-1980s.
History of the Spring Valley Post Office
Spring Valley got its very first post office way back in 1848. This was seven years after local farmers convinced the New York and Erie Railroad to build a stop where a farm road (now North Main Street) crossed the train tracks. The town quickly grew because of the train connection to New York City. It officially became a village in 1902.
Building During the Great Depression
In 1931, the U.S. government decided to build many new post offices and add to existing ones in New York. This was part of a plan to help people during the Great Depression, a time when many people didn't have jobs. Building new post offices created work for people. Even though the plan started in 1931, construction on Spring Valley's post office didn't begin until 1936. The land for the building was bought from a local lumber company that same year. Construction started later in 1936, and the building opened its doors in 1937.
The Colonial Revival design for this post office was created by Louis A. Simon, who was the main architect for the Treasury Department. This design is special because it's different from many other Colonial Revival post offices in New York. While many others used a similar basic design, Spring Valley's post office really highlights the older Greek Revival style with its columns and triangular top. Another architect, Jackson Flournoy, used similar features on his post office in Jackson Heights, which is also a historic site.
Artist Stephen Etnier's mural, Waiting for the Mail, was added in 1938. It was meant to show how mail could connect people all over the world, even those in faraway places. Later on, the lobby teller windows were made bigger, and new lights were put in. Other than these small changes, the building looks much like it did when it first opened!
