In recent weeks there has been much discussion about the future of Lansdale's Borough Hall. While most residents concede the 79-year-old building needs major repairs the overriding question is whether to fix it or tear it down and start over.

Is the former post office a landmark worthy of preservation or just another old downtown building to be demolished along with the 75 others – including the Hotel Tremont and the Lansdale Theatre – that were razed over the last half century? A recent study concluded that both borough hall and the adjacent police station desperately need attention. The police station, originally built in 1957 as a library, has little historic significance and, in fact, served its original purpose for only 15 years. However, borough hall has some deep historic roots.

They go back to the early days of the Great Depression, a time when the stock market crashed, banks failed and the masses of unemployed resorted to selling apples on street corners to subsist. The year was 1929: The last gasp of the Roarin' Twenties. The Lansdale Kiwanis Club launched a campaign to get a new post office for the town. Over the years the USPS had operated out of a number of rented facilities on Main and Walnuts streets. They were all cramped, dingy and ill-equipped to service a growing community. Some of Lansdale's leading citizens got behind the effort including the Rev. Joseph Shade, rector of St. Stanislaus Church, and Walter Sanborn, publisher of The Reporter.

Under normal circumstances the timing of their campaign seemed ill-advised, coming as it did on the eve of the stock market crash. Not so, thanks to the efforts of a local congressman who pushed Lansdale's request as part of the first wave of a $100 million public works project designed to create jobs for the unemployed. Those hired were not just laborers but skilled architects and craftsmen who through no fault of their own got caught in the Depression web. Word came on Dec. 30, 1930 that the Feds jumped on board and Lansdale was chosen for a large post office that might also house other government offices. The timeline was three to four years. The deal went through for $125,000 (big money for a small town in 1930) and, as it turned out, the project was completed in 37 months. Actual construction took about a year.

It was built at Broad and Vine Streets, once the site of the Broadway Hotel and later Strawberry Park, a community gathering place.

The finished product aroused tremendous pride on the part of Lansdale's residents. For years they battled the image of a rough-around-the-edges railroad town; now they had a federal building that rivaled those in communities twice Lansdale's size. Its imposing façade – largely unchanged today - was rivaled only by the First National Bank.

The needs of the postal service and the public changed considerably between 1934 and the 1980s. The region's population boomed, especially in the surrounding townships that were served by motorized routes. Also, borough residents became wed to their cars and parking was a major problem. The post office lobby and service windows fronted on Broad Street where council chambers now are. The area in the back – which is now the front of borough hall – was reserved for loading docks and employee parking.