Main Brooklyn Post Office, aka Conrad B. Duberstein U.S. Bankruptcy Courthouse, is one of downtown Brooklyn’s architectural gems. The four-story (plus tower) granite structure is boldly detailed Romanesque Revival. The building originally included federal courtrooms – but the courts have now pushed the original post office functions into the addition, built in 1933.
Both the original building and the annex were restored, inside and out, from 1996 through 2013. But prior to the restoration, the Federal Government wanted to demolish the annex to build a 415-foot-high courthouse tower – a structure that would dwarf the original building.
As The New York Times reported in 1992, “Deirdre Carson, a vice president for land use for the Brooklyn Heights Association, said that the 1891 building was one of the classic architectural structures in downtown Brooklyn and that putting a large building next to it would ruin its visual impact. ‘We’re trading two years of jobs for generations of ugliness,’ she said.” (full story)
Main Brooklyn Post Office Vital Statistics
- Location: 271-C Cadman Plaza East
- Year completed: 1891
- Architect: Mifflin E. Bell, William A. Freret
- Floors: 4
- Style: Romanesque Revival
- New York City Landmark: 1966
- National Register of Historic Places: 1974
Main Brooklyn Post Office Recommended Reading
- Wikipedia entry
- NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission designation report
- The New York Times Moving of Courts Planned in Brooklyn (August 18, 1992)
- Emporis database
- Downtown Brooklyn blog
- Architizer project page
- BirdMaster project page
- General Services Administration building pages