Then & Now: Old post office, Union Station, Worcester

Connected to Union Station by a tunnel beneath the railroad tracks, the Worcester parcel post branch of the U.S. Post Office handled coming and going packages for nearly four decades.

In 1970, soon after the opening of a new main post office on East Central Street, now called the Joseph D. Early Post Office Building, the branch was abandoned. Packages were handled at the new building.

The 51,000-square-foot parcel post building — shown in this week's Then photo — took shape in the mid-1930s at Franklin and Harding streets, in the shadow of railroad tracks and a warehouse then filled by Cornell Dubilier, a capacitor maker. (The building was long known as the Osgood Bradley Building, now home of Edge apartments.)

The postal building's $350,000 price tag was covered by the National Recovery Administration, a New Deal program, in a funding package that included six other Massachusetts post offices.

Worcester officials, notably U.S. Rep. Pehr G. Holmes, had long lobbied for a postal building at Union Station. (Holmes also served as mayor of Worcester 1917-1920.)

Part of the construction involved the opening of a closed tunnel that was included in earlier work on the rail bed.

The building became a package depot for Worcester businesses.

Another government program, one that focused on fine arts, resulted in three large murals being displayed in the building for many years. They were the work of Ralf Edgar Nickelsen, a German artist living in Newton. He worked for the Works Progress Administration.

He was one of nearly four dozen artists who vied to have work shown in the parcel post building.

Meantime, the completion of the post office on East Central Street meant the postal service would no longer need the parcel post building. The new post office was dedicated on June 12, 1970.

The old building was taken over by the federal General Services Administration. After much speculation and several pitches for the property — from a job-training center to retail — the GSA turned over the keys to UMass Medical School. For nearly thirty years, the school leased the building for offices and storage. It eventually took over the deed, paying $1.

In 2003, with the city looking to build a parking garage for Union Station, the property was sold to the city by UMass Medical. The old parcel post building was razed in early 2006. A 500-spot garage opened in 2008.

What about the Nickelsen murals?

They were initially shipped to the New York studio of Hiram Hoelzer, a noted art restorer.

In Worcester, an effort was organized to return the three murals to the city. The Worcester Public Library, notably Samuel Bachrach, a director, and the Friends of the Library, spearheaded the successful push to add the murals to the library's collection.

On Dec. 14, 1972, with Nickelsen on hand, a dedication ceremony was held at the library. The murals, on permanent loan from the National Museum of American Art, depict workers tending crops, workers building a street and people reading mail.

The murals hang on the second floor of the library, this time overlooking books, not boxes.

Information from Worcester Public Library was used in this report. The parcel post building was recently the subject of a discussion by the Old School Worcester group on Facebook.

Last week Then & Now: 242 Mill St., Worcester

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Then & Now: Old post office, Union Station, Worcester