This placard explains the purpose of this garden not far from a place of learning.
Only a couple blocks from Lockport High School, students pass by daily in busses, but seldom stop. This beautiful garden has a gazebo, benches, walkways and trellises from which to enjoy the garden which is full of beautiful flowers.
Automobile traffic passes by non-stop, yet very few people get out of their cars to enjoy this gem, located prominently on a major street. Where am I?
Yesterday’s photo, as my sister correctly answered, was the Old Post Office Building on Main Street, across from the Historic Palace Theater.
It was home to a number of Federal Offices on it’s several floors, but to most people, it was simply “The Post Office.” I can remember standing in line there waiting to get your turn at the ornate windows to buy stamps or send a package. It reminded you of a bank, but shabbier. I still can see the big iron steam radiators and the ornate brass post office boxes.
Any effort to impress stopped at the wall the service windows were at, though, and once you got to the window, you got a view of the warehouse-like area behind, full of packages and mail. Perhaps, in those days, they actually sorted some of the mail right there!
Today, it’s for sale. You could own this classic building for a price. For the past decade plus, there have been shops and offices in it. It’s probably a fixer-upper, but looks like a sound building yet.
This is the nice little park across Transit from the memorial you showed the other day. Were you walking to the drug store on the other corner near both of them by chance?
Yes, in the old days, and too a small extent, still, the carriers did the final sorting of mail at their cases in the postal buildings. At the end of Kennedy Plaza in downtown Providence, RI, there is a very large post office building from the same era as Lockport’s building. It has the same brass windows and boxes like an old bank. At one time this building was the main postal center for Providence, and was located specifically on a railroad line next to the train station. In 1960, the USPS built the “Turn-Key” post office, the first mechanized sorting facility in the US, about a mile away. This is where I work, and it has tripled in size since it was built. The Kennedy Plaza post office is still in use as a station and serves the many businesses and workers downtown.