We learned a lot about the James A. Farley Post Office on our visit to the opening of Storefront for Art and Architecture’s installation by Katarzyna Krakowaik, “The great and the secret show / the look out gallery.” First, the exhibit name became clear. The sound installation takes place in a former police corridor just above the service counters in the main hall. “The lookout gallery,” a name dubbed by the workers, is actually an extensive system of secret corridors that connected thousands of rooms in the old Post Office, with small eyeholes for postal policemen to control the working environment through an analog CCTV. The prerecorded sounds of doors closing, cards being thrown away, postcards being stamped and other current and prior Post Office activities raises “questions of labor, public service, and hierarchy in one of the most visited urban spaces of years past” as the Storefront’s website describes. Ultimately the installation… Read More