The Portland Main Post Office is located at 125

Forest Avenue Forest Avenue (formerly known as Green Street; colloquially known as Forest Ave) is a major street in Portland, Maine, United States. It runs for around ,

in the Parkside neighborhood of

Portland, Maine Portland is the List of municipalities in Maine, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maine and the county seat, seat of Cumberland County, Maine, Cumberland County. Portland's population was 68,408 at the 2020 census. The Portland metropolit ...

. The building in which it is located, now shared with other businesses, was built in 1932 to a design by noted Maine architects

John Calvin Stevens John Calvin Stevens (October 8, 1855 – January 25, 1940) was an American architect who worked in the Shingle Style, in which he was a major innovator, and the Colonial Revival style. He designed more than 1,000 buildings in the state of Maine. ...

and John Howard Stevens and enlarged in 1967. It was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 1986 for its Colonial Revival architecture.

Description and history

The Portland Main Post Office is located on the east side of

Forest Avenue Forest Avenue (formerly known as Green Street; colloquially known as Forest Ave) is a major street in Portland, Maine, United States. It runs for around ,

, across the street from Deering Oaks park. The building and its associated parking areas occupy the entire block bounded on the north by Kennebec Street and on the south by Portland Street. The southern part of the building is its older portion; it is a steel-framed structure finished in brick and stone, two stories in height. Its front is divided into thirteen bays, articulated by brick pilasters, with most of the ground-floor bays filled with windows set in round-arch openings. The center three bays house the original main entrance, and the outer three bays on each side are in projecting wings with gabled fronts. The addition to the north is of roughly equal size to the original, but has much simpler styling. The post office was built in 1932, at an appropriated cost of $850,000. When built, it was the second largest post office in

New England New England is a region consisting of six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the ...

, second in size to that in

Boston, Massachusetts Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

. It was designed by the father-and-son team of

and John Howard Stevens in the "New England Colonial" style, a blend of Colonial and Classical Revival styles. The addition, built in 1967 to house other federal offices, was designed by Richard Wright of Lewiston. The post office is now located in the addition; the original building now houses a variety of commercial, professional, and government offices.

References

{{National Register of Historic Places Post office buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Maine Colonial Revival architecture in Maine Government buildings completed in 1932 Government buildings in Portland, Maine National Register of Historic Places in Portland, Maine

Description and history

See also

References