Post Office in Lexington Avenue, City of New York

Grand Central Post Office, southwest corner of Forty-Fifth Street and Lexington Avenue, New York County, NY. Photograph by Historic American Buildings Survey, about the 1980s. Source: Library of Congress.

The Grand Central Post Office was envisioned as a key element of the Grand Central Station complex, built between 1903 and 1914 for a railroad cartel headed by the might New York Central Railroad. The complex included the massive Terminal itself, surrounded by raised traffic viaduct, the Post Office Annex, railroad offices on 45th street, and a vast underground network of tracks and platforms. The the classical granite and limestone Annex was constructed as part of the complex to provide railroad-related office space on the upper floors while the lower stores were leased as a postal facility. In 1932, the federal government purchased the edifice from the New York Central. In 1937 and 1938 the building underwent a major interior alteration under the direction of the United States Postal Service.