[3] Postal operations moved to larger facilities prior to 1972, but the building continued to house federal government offices for a few years.

An open, grassy plaza is located to the south; otherwise the surrounding neighborhood is densely developed with commercial buildings of a comparable or greater size.

[4] Many date to the late 19th and early 20th centuries and are, like the post office, contributing properties to the Downtown Albany Historic District.

Between the towers, on the main block, are mansard roofs pierced by small lunette dormer windows and topped with an iron balustrade.

[8] As the eastern terminus of the Erie Canal, an upper port on the Hudson River and a major rail junction, Albany had grown considerably over the course of the 19th century.

Its economic activity required a significant presence of federal government agencies, and their needs had outgrown the city's available space.

After the Civil War, the Treasury Department turned its attention and resources to upgrading its facilities in cities that, like Albany, had grown rapidly due to industrialization.

William A. Potter, then Supervising Architect of the Treasury, had designed a large, elaborate building in the High Victorian Gothic mode, with polychromatic stone siding.

To save money, he changed the design to the Renaissance Revival style, which he supposedly preferred, complementing its use on the state capitol up the hill to the west.

They hired Arnold W. Brunner, an architect and urban planner from New York, to resolve what he called "the tangle of mean streets and wretched buildings" on the waterfront.

[3] He observed that Albany, reflecting its origins as a 17th-century frontier outpost, had followed the pattern of European cities which had likewise developed during the Middle Ages, with long, narrow streets and densely clustered buildings.

The Delaware and Hudson Railroad, a major presence in the city, built the desired building, designed by local architect Marcus T. Reynolds, in 1914.

The New York City architectural firm that oversaw the renovations received an energy conservation award from Owens Corning, the building insulation manufacturer.