US Post Office--Salem Main

_PHYSICAL APPEARANCE_ The Salem Post Office is at the southern end of a very dramatic and bustling downtown area on Margin Street. The building and its corner property are in excellent condition. It is centered on the site, with a grand stairway and lawn before it and a vehicle maneuvering area to its rear. The site is landscaped with lawn, shrubs, and trees. A detailed wrought-iron fence with hollow ornamental posts protects the Norman Street side of the property. This two-story edifice of steel frame construction functions as both the Post Office and federal building. The building is of red brick laid in a Flemish bond with a cross-gabled roof over the public two-story block.

In plan, there is an original vestibule and public lobby flanked by the Postmaster's Office and work space, with the workroom, mail vestibule, and platform' beyond. Ten wide granite steps with wrought-iron railings mark the main entry. The front (east) elevation is a thirteen-bay composition with a five-bay central projecting entrance portion. This area is topped by a brick tympanum with a granite raking cornice and a bronze frame oculus window with terra-cotta festooned ornament. A plain granite entablature with denticulated cornicing surrounds the structure. The second floor consists of a series of wood-frame, double-hung windows with 12/12 light and granite sills.

The entrance portico is emphasized by a series of brick pilasters with Ionic terra-cotta bases and caps suggesting a hexastyle portico. A brick ledge defines the second floor level. The first floor end bays have NPS Form 10-900-a (3-82) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Inventory - Nomination Form Continuation sheet Salem Post Office Item number 7 OMB No. 1024-0018 Exp.

Touls B. Cadarto a Sons, butider Prominently sited overlooking Ripley Plaza in downtown Salem, their building is a handsome two-story brick cross gable structure (with one story ell). It fulfills the function of U.S. Post Office branch as well as federal office building. Built in 1932-1933, its designs were provided by the Salem based architectural firm of Smith and Walker. Architecturally it is significant as the finest example of a Colonial Revival civic building in Salem. Furthermore, it represents a radical departure from Secretary of the Treasurer McAdoo's 1915 classification of buildings.

Under this system (still in operation before the Supervising Architect's office was placed within the Public Works Administration in 1933), post offices of a scale as grand as Salem's Post Office would be categorized as Type A Buildings in their category; however, were faced with marble or brick - brick was used in smaller scale, Type C post offices. In this case, brick reinforced with granite, was employed to meet North Shore weather conditions. The "bond" of the walls feature what is called the "Harvard Effect", so called because it was a technique first used at Harvard University. This technique involves bonding granite over a brick surface. Chelmsford quarries provided the granite material.

Compatibility with extant masonry, late 18th and early 19th century structures in the city may have been another reason for the choice of brick. Stylistically this building is Georgian in terms of form : its five bay pedimented central pavillion is flanked by four bay wings. Windows on the tirst floor exhibit an arched, multi-pane Palladian-like sensibility, while standard multi-pane rectangular windor appear on the second floor. Ornamentations (in the Adamesque style) is limited to the pediments of the cross and side gables. Before the Salem Post Office was constructed, 51 buildings occupied this site.