In 1905,
Benjamin Altman acquired a plot of land near Third Avenue in the Murray Hill neighborhood of Manhattan that included of frontage on East 36th Street and of frontage on East 37th Street. The following year, plans were prepared for a five-story brick and stone stable on the site. The new structure was located near the
B. Altman and Company Building, the company's flagship store that opened in 1906 at the corner of
Fifth Avenue and
34th Street and was expanded through 1914 to occupy a full city block, extending east to
Madison Avenue and north to 35th Street. Until 1906, B. Altman & Company's flagship store had been located on
Sixth Avenue between West 18th and 19th streets, in an area containing other large department stores that is now designated as the
Ladies' Mile Historic District. as of 2024 the structure still exists as the Altman Building and includes event space used by the adjacent
Metropolitan Pavilion. Some of the large department stores began switching to motorized trucks for deliveries at the turn of the century and B. Altman & Company's fleet of vehicles included
electric trucks. B. Altman & Company continued making deliveries in trucks operated by the company until 1931, when shipping was taken over by
United Parcel Service. In 1918, Altman purchased five lots running from 215 to 223 East 36th Street to serve as an addition to the original stable. Overall, this new property measured . Another lot was purchased adjacent to the north side of the building (No. 204), which increased the frontage on East 37th Street to . That same year, plans were filed for a five-story fireproof garage on the new property acquired on East 36th Street. The new building was subsequently displaced by the construction of the exit plaza for the
Queens–Midtown Tunnel, which opened in 1940 and included a new north–south street for exiting traffic between Second and Third avenues, running from East 34th to East 41st streets, with an underpass below East 36th Street. B. Altman and Company sold the original building in 1948, which at the time was being used as a warehouse for the company's furniture and mattress departments, and moved into a new warehouse located at 48–49 35th Avenue in
Long Island City. The building was subsequently used as a furniture warehouse and repair factory by John Stuart, Inc. and the United States Postal Service moved into the building by the 1960s, operating the facility as an annex that manually handled
parcel post for its Grand Central Station at
450 Lexington Avenue. The property was acquired by the federal government through
eminent domain on June 29, 1987. ==Architecture==