Qualla: Old Post Office (Washington, D.C.) https://qualla.com/old-post-office-washington-d-c en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:08 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/d/q/c/j/old-post-office-washington-d-c-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Old Post Office (Washington, D.C.) https://qualla.com/old-post-office-washington-d-c Old Post Office (Washington, D.C.): Introduction https://qualla.com/old-post-office-washington-d-c/ Photo credit Elisa Rolle, CC BY-SA 3.0. On October 10, 1956, the cable holding the great mechanical weight that powered the clock in the Old Post Office tower snapped. The weight - several hundred pounds of cast iron - plunged through two floors of the building and came to rest a few feet from a man who had just stood up from his desk. The clock had run for 57 years on gravity, the cable rewound once or twice a day. After the accident, the mechanical clock was replaced with an electric one. The narrowness of the man's escape was, in retrospect, a fair summary of what the building had been doing throughout the twentieth century: nearly being destroyed and somehow surviving. The Old Post Office at 12th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue has been on the verge of demolition at least four times - in 1928, 1934, 1938, and 1970. Each time, it survived.

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Image: Elisa Rolle | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/q/c/j/old-post-office-washington-d-c-wp/dqcj-old-post-office-washington-d-c-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Old Post Office (Washington, D.C.): Edbrooke's Romanesque https://qualla.com/old-post-office-washington-d-c/ Photo credit APK, CC BY-SA 4.0. Congress authorized the building on June 25, 1890. Senator Leland Stanford of California had chosen the site at the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and 12th Street in 1888, hoping to revitalize the Murder Bay neighborhood between the White House and the Capitol - a notoriously viol...

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Image: APK | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/q/c/j/old-post-office-washington-d-c-wp/dqcj-old-post-office-washington-d-c-edbrookes-romanesque.mp3 0:06 2 full Old Post Office (Washington, D.C.): Federal Triangle's Inconvenient Survivor https://qualla.com/old-post-office-washington-d-c/ Photo credit AgnosticPreachersKid, CC BY-SA 3.0. When the Federal Triangle complex was planned through the late 1920s, the Old Post Office sat awkwardly inside the proposed footprint of the new Neoclassical office buildings. The 1928 master plan called for demolition to make way for a Circular Plaza inspired by the Place Vendôm...

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Image: AgnosticPreachersKid | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/q/c/j/old-post-office-washington-d-c-wp/dqcj-old-post-office-washington-d-c-federal-triangles-inconvenient-survivor.mp3 0:06 3 full Old Post Office (Washington, D.C.): Festival Marketplace https://qualla.com/old-post-office-washington-d-c/ Photo credit Cooper Renner, Public domain. The 1976 Public Buildings Cooperative Use Act let the GSA lease federal buildings and use the proceeds for renovations - and allowed commercial retail and restaurant uses within federal office buildings. The Old Post Office got a $66 million renovation completed in 1983, with the...

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Image: Cooper Renner | Public domain

]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/q/c/j/old-post-office-washington-d-c-wp/dqcj-old-post-office-washington-d-c-festival-marketplace.mp3 0:06 4 full Old Post Office (Washington, D.C.): Trump's Lease https://qualla.com/old-post-office-washington-d-c/ Photo credit Dean Suhr, CC BY-SA 4.0. By the late 2000s, the Pavilion was losing money for both its operators and the GSA. The agency issued a request for proposals in March 2011. Ten bidders responded. On February 6, 2012, GSA chose the Trump Organization, partnered with Colony Capital, which had pledged to invest $...

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Image: Dean Suhr | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/q/c/j/old-post-office-washington-d-c-wp/dqcj-old-post-office-washington-d-c-trumps-lease.mp3 0:06 5 full Old Post Office (Washington, D.C.): Emoluments and the Waldorf https://qualla.com/old-post-office-washington-d-c/ Photo credit ajay_suresh, CC BY 2.0. Throughout Trump's presidency, the hotel attracted both political and legal scrutiny. CREW v. Trump and District of Columbia and Maryland v. Trump - lawsuits filed in 2017 - alleged that the hotel's continued operation by the sitting president violated the Constitution's Foreign ...

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]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/q/c/j/old-post-office-washington-d-c-wp/dqcj-old-post-office-washington-d-c-emoluments-and-the-waldorf.mp3 0:06 6 full