User:Ɱ/United States Post Office (Briarcliff Manor, New York)




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The U.S. Post Office in Briarcliff Manor, New York, is located on Pleasantville Road at the corner of Delton Lane, adjacent to the Briarcliff Manor Village Hall. Along with the Scarborough Post Office, the Briarcliff office serves the ZIP Code 10510, which covers Briarcliff Manor and areas of the towns of Ossining and Mount Pleasant.

History
The first post office in present-day Briarcliff opened in 1881, when the area was known as Whitson's Corners. The Whitson farming family had several farmhouses in the area, and the community was centered around the present-day Pleasantville and South State roads intersection, giving the community, its post office, and train station their names. The first post office was created in 1881, operating out of the area's first train station building, also built that year. The station was renamed for Briarcliff Manor in 1897, five years before the village was officially founded. In 1906, village founder Walter W. Law decided to move the building to Millwood and reconstruct the train station. At that time, the post office moved to a temporary building nearby, and then moved into a new concrete building built by Law's Briarcliff Realty Company.

In the late 1920s and early 1930s a series of moves were made. The Briarcliff-Peekskill Parkway (Route 9A) was being built, so the concrete building was demolished. The post office then moved to the Brookside Inn in 1929, though its land also became necessary for parkway ramps, so in 1931 the post office moved to the Surtag Building (holding three storefronts downtown, just south of North State Road). Village residents liked the convenient location, though the postmaster argued that more residents lived within a square mile of the old location, by the present-day library. Later that year, more available space and parking led the post office to move to the Crossways, an old Whitson family farmhouse by the Briarcliff Congregational Church (it stood on the site of the church's parish house). A year later, in 1932, the post office moved to a new downtown post office building, but running out of room, it moved to a new brick building just south of the Briarcliff Manor Village Hall in late 1952. In 1978, again running out of room, the present-day post office was built just south of the 1952 building.

1932 building
The post office from 1932 to 1952 is at 1157 Pleasantville Road, a one-story building with an ornamental facade with an estimated cost of $10,000. The building was built by a contractor specializing in post office buildings, and leased to the government for 10 years at a time. Set to open October 1, 1932, the building was of white brick, with an ornamental seal above the doorway. The interior was light and spacious, with stained wood floors and white walls. Three grilled windows separated the postmaster and staff from the public. Twenty workmen built the building, from Briarcliff, Ossining, and Pleasantville. Around 1953, the building's interior and exterior were renovated and converted into a drug store.


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