William M. Kendall

In 1882, Kendall joined the firm of McKim, Mead & White where he worked on many significant buildings, including the Morgan Library, the Low Memorial Library and other buildings at Columbia University, the Washington Square Arch, Bellevue Hospital, and the Main Post Office (James Farley Post Office), all in New York City; Arlington Memorial Bridge, the Army War College, and the restoration of St. John’s Episcopal Church, in Washington, D.C.; the American Academy in Rome; and the Harvard University School of Business, many of the Harvard gates, and the Plymouth Rock Memorial (Pilgrim Memorial State Park), in Massachusetts.

It was Kendall who proposed inscribing the quotation from Herodotus on the frieze of the New York Post Office: “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” Kendall became a partner of McKim, Mead & White in 1906.

[2] Kendall served on the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts from 1916 to 1921, and was a member of its Committee for the Beautification of Permanent American Military Cemeteries in France and England, which traveled to inspect proposed sites and subsequently recommended architectural treatment for the America's European war cemeteries.

Kendall was a fellow of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), whose New York chapter awarded him its Medal of Honor, conferred in 1928 for "distinguished work and high professional standing".

[3] Kendall was a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters; served as a trustee of the American Academy in Rome; was a member of the Society of Mayflower Descendants; and served on the 1934 Prix de Rome jury with architects Louis Ayres and John Russell Pope.