in 2011 i was given the green light to briefly explore the vacant "old main" or former central post office at 433 w. van buren with a few building contractors who were assigned the task of gutting the interior - minus the grand lobby - for future development. it was quite a surreal experience (albeit a brief one) to navigate through a very massive and dark 2.7 million square foot (or 60 acre) building that has stood empty and neglected for the past 20 years.

the grandeur of the art deco interior and vaulted ceilings was magnified by our human scale -- with only three people and a german shephard wandering through the football field-sized corridors. since the structure is essentially abandoned very few have been able to experience the inside, with its grandiose piers, narrow windows, cream colored marble and french glass and tile reliefs. the images gathered here should provide a glimpse of this magnificently outsized 1920's building.

one of the more surprising finds inside this old building was a morgue, which we were told had been a storage facility for soldier's bodies being shipped back during ww2. though record of this is difficult to find, it seems like a plausible little known history. we additionally came across a number of gigantic vaults throughout. all of this added to the unreal quality of the visit, and seemed to corroborate the fact that the spacious building deserves some research into its 70+ years of history.

the original nine-story rectangular behemoth was constructed in 1921 by graham, anderson, probst, & white (whose work includes numerous monumental buildings including chicago's field museum, union station, the wrigley building, civic opera house and the merchandise mart). when the old main building opened, it was the world's largest post office, designed to straddle the congress street projected in the 1909 burnham plan (i.e. daniel burnham and edward bennett's city plan endeavoring to widen streets and improve developments along the lakeside).

in the mid-1960's the post office struggled to remain efficient, perhaps an example of architecture failing the intended function of a space. multi-story operations required the heavy use of elevators, for one thing. at some point, the post office came to a virtual halt when a logjam of  10 million pieces of mail clogged the system for almost an entire week. after this disaster, a new post office with a modernized facility was proposed and built across the street. since then the old main building's mammoth size has stymied a series of redevelopment schemes.

note: the photographic "output" from winter of 2011 is a reflection of being heavily unequipped and pressed for time. this represents one of only a handful of situations where i failed to deliver and/or live up to my standards for systemically documenting such a magnificent and haunting building. thinking back, this was only meant to be a "teaser" visit (with many more to follow) to offer a glimpse into what the contractor was up against in terms of orchestrating a complete "gut" job of the interior - with the exception of the lobby of course. none of this ever came to fruition of course and the project was stalled a month or so after my visit, which proved to be my last, at least for now.

navigating through the scattered miscellaneous debris left alone, untouched, and mostly hidden in the dark recesses of this rather desolate and unnerving abandoned building left me focused more on my safety (e.g., avoiding drop shafts) then allowing the camera to capture the experience in great detail.

update as of 2-22-2016:

City Moves to Seize Old Main Post Office Property, Choose New Developer