Old Post Office Pavilion and Clock Tower

The Old Post Office Pavilion was constructed between 1899 and 1914 as the U.S. Post Office Department's main downtown facility and is one of the largest Romanesque Revival federal buildings in the city. Its 19th-floor clock tower contains an observation deck that has been operated by the National Park Service and been open to the public at various times. The building narrowly escaped demolition in the 1920s and again in the 1970s, and has since been adaptively reused as commercial and hospitality space while retaining its historic fabric. The structure is a prominent surviving example of late-19th/early-20th-century federal infrastructure in downtown Washington.