Old Post Office

Old Post Office. . This structure, designed by James A. Wetmore and completed in 1932, is the second post office to occupy this site. Erected at a cost of $3.3 million, the neo-classical building, with its marble halls and paneled court-rooms, contained the most modern equipment for handling the mail, but due to an architect's oversight, it lacked mail chutes., Besides housing the U.S. courts and other federal agencies, the building once included a soundproof pistol range where Treasury agents practiced. An underground tunnel connected the building to the Federal Reserve Bank across the street., Through the persistent efforts of Jerome Goldfein, Real Estate Officer for Baltimore City, the federal government was persuaded to give the building to the City in 1979, provided that it be maintained as an historic landmark., The first post office on this side, completed in 1889, was in the Italian Renaissance style, with a mansard roof and nine decorative towers (below). During the Great Fire of 1904, postal employees withstood immense heat to save the building by dousing its windows with buckets of water.