The unusual art in the Old Chelsea post office

Post office branches in New York can be drab and cramped, and the vibe inside not exactly inviting.

But the Old Chelsea station on West 18th Street off of Seventh Avenue is a lovely relic.

Built in 1934, it’s wide and drafty, with carved eagles and doric columns. The facade has a colonial feel—connecting the building back to its colonial-era Old Chelsea neighborhood, when the streets were mostly farmland.

But what to make of these cast stone panels of woodland creatures above the main entrance inside? Created by an artist named Paul Feine, perhaps they’re supposed to remind letter mailers of the way Chelsea looked before Manhattan was chopped down and paved over.

I hope they stay through the post office’s renovation—reports say the USPS is selling the air rights to developers to build condos.

[Top photo: Wikipedia]

A wooden phone booth in an old Flatiron bar

Few bars have as much old-school atmosphere as the circa-1892 Old Town Bar on 18th Street next to Park Avenue South.

The long mahogany and marble bar is original, as are the tin ceilings. And the neon sign hanging outside gives off a warm New York glow.

The best part is inside: a wooden phone booth! It’s way in the back on the ground floor, partly obscured by a table. In the darkened room, it’s hard to even notice it.

The phone is gone, of course. Yet there’s a folding door for privacy, a wooden counter, and a sign on top referencing the Bell Telephone Company.

More of these remnants of pre-cell phone New York can be found here.

A look at Manhattan’s first apartment building

For much of the city’s history, any New York household that could afford it lived in their own single-family home. The idea of sharing a residence with other people? Very declasse.

But in 1870, a developer named Rutherford Stuyvesant tried something new with his Stuyvesant Flats at 142 East 18th Street, near Third Avenue.

Inspired by new multi-family buildings that were all the rage in Paris, Stuyvesant spent $100,000 on his five-story structure, hiring architect Richard Morris Hunt to design 16 apartments and four artists’ studios.

First dubbed a folly, these middle-class rentals near chic Union Square caught on quick. They ushered in demand for more apartment-style dwellings.

“Although lacking an elevator, the building had running (cold) water, a novelty at the time,” states Changing New York, which features a photo of Stuyvesant Flats by Berenice Abbott in 1936 (above).

“Full occupancy followed, and “Parisian Flats” came into vogue. In later years, steam heat and electricity were added, and the building remained fully occupied until its 1958 demolition for Gramercy Green (above right), a 14-story building with 240 apartments.”