Times Square Post Office Hours In 1931?

Just curious,

I do not know the direct answer, but being a major downtown station, I would certainly expect extended sales window hours by today's standards. Also I suspect there was always a clerk or two in the back sorting, putting mail into customer boxes, sending out special delivery messengers, etc. So finding an 11pm or a 5am cancel would not be unusual for a station in such a place. An unusual time slug in a cancel does not mean the window was necessarily open for customer sales. Also, they may have had the lobby open 24 hours a day for access to the boxes, thus easy access to a mailing slot. Having rambled on a bit, did you have a specific example?

Being such a busy place I figured they have to adjusted things to accommodate all the traffic.
7pm didn't seem too late, but not hours I'd think them open regularly

Imo, 7pm is not late for a downtown NYC station. I would expect the customer window to be open even later there - especially "back then", although I have no hard data. Even 20 years ago, I could go to the airport mail facility in Indianapolis which had 24-hour window service and get service from a live window clerk at 3am if I desired. Many large cities had a 24-hour window somewhere.

That said, most mail is initially canceled during fairly normal hours and into the early evening. Finding cancels between 9pm and 6am are decidedly less common. Also remember that just because the customer window closes at a certain hour does not mean the action stops in the back room to cancel, sort, and move the mail c1931 by truck, rail, and plane all during the night. Just as much action happens after the window closes.
Here are some night-hour cancels, which could easily be brought in from carriers at the end of their route, deposited in street boxes collected one last time late each evening, etc.




And these early-hour examples, when backstamping was still practiced on first class mail, arriving at the destination in the middle of the night.


Yes, I known I still have no idea of the hours of Times Square Station in 1931.

I noticed the Prout's Neck, Maine cancellation. Prout's Neck is a small coastal village at the end of a peninsula. The artist Winslow Homer had a studio there for many years. I know the lobstermen and fishermen are up early but I am surprised that the postal workers would be as well.

It should be noted that it is called Times Square because the New York Times had it's headquarters there. So it is likely that the post office nearby would have at least one window open very late if not all night just because it was such an important location. It was an important area since about 1890, even without the newspaper.