The Old Post Office: an overview

Built between 1892 and 1899, the Old Post Office was designed to house both the headquarters of the U.S. Post Office Department and the city's main post office branch. Its clock tower is still one of the tallest structures in the nation's capital, and for decades it gave visitors some of the best free views of Washington.

Today the massive Romanesque Revival building is a defining feature of the Washington skyline. Yet it spent much of the twentieth century slated for demolition. Through the efforts of dedicated preservationists, the Old Post Office weathered storm after storm of controversy and remains one of Washington's favourite landmarks.

Nearly demolished, twice

In 1928, not thirty years after its completion, the building was first marked for demolition to clear the way for harmonious neoclassical federal office buildings. A product of the Beaux-Arts City Beautiful movement, the creation of the Federal Triangle transformed the area around the Old Post Office. Only after seven other Triangle buildings were completed did a lack of money during the Great Depression save it. The building went on serving a series of government agencies for the next thirty years.

In 1964 the President's Council on Pennsylvania Avenue recommended demolishing everything but the clock tower, in yet another attempt to create architectural harmony in the Triangle. Local citizens banded together and, with the help of Nancy Hanks, the politically influential chair of the National Endowment for the Arts, persuaded Congress to change course. We tell that story in Don't Tear It Down.

Saved, restored and renamed

A decade later, redevelopment plans for the Pennsylvania Avenue corridor included the preservation of the Old Post Office, which had been listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. Renovation began in 1977 and produced a mixed-use building, with shops and food stalls on the lower levels and federal offices above. This adaptive approach drew national attention as a workable model for historic preservation. In 1983 the building was officially renamed the Nancy Hanks Center in recognition of her devotion to saving historically significant buildings.

The Congress Bells

To mark the nation's Bicentennial in 1976, the Ditchley Foundation of Great Britain presented a set of English change-ringing bells to the U.S. Congress as a symbol of friendship. The bells, replicas of those at Westminster Abbey, were hung in the clock tower in 1983 and are rung for the opening and closing of Congress and on national holidays. Read more in The Congress Bells.

The next chapter

In 2008 Congress directed the General Services Administration to redevelop the building. A 2011 request for proposals led to a long-term ground lease, a luxury hotel that opened in 2016, a change of hands in 2022 and, in June 2026, the sale of the building itself. The full sequence is on our redevelopment timeline. Through every chapter the Old Post Office has served as a reminder of the lasting impact of people devoted to conserving the built environment.