text: Treasury officials hoped to have the Post Office building under construction and ground broken for the Justice building by December 1930. But a major design change and funding choices were made in 1930. Pope convinced the Commission on Fine Arts to switch the positions of the Department of Justice and National Archives, giving the Justice building more space. Congress also amended the Public Buildings Act to permit private (not just federally employed) architects to bid on design contracts, and agreed to fund the construction of the Justice, Labor/ICC, National Archives, and Post Office buildings.
  1931 saw much of the Federal Triangle project near completion. In March 1931, Congress appropriated $3 million to begin construction of the Apex Building, the last structure to be funded. Demolition began on the site the following November. The Internal Revenue building was completed and occupied in June. It was finished a year ahead of schedule, and contained more than 672,000 square feet (62,500 square meters) of office space (3.4 percent more than originally planned). But work had yet to begin on the Justice, Labor, or Post Office buildings. Work on the ICC building finally began in April 1931 when the two blocks for the site began to be razed, and 13th Street NW was permanently blocked off at that time. The first work on the Post Office site began in July with demolition as well. Demolition of existing structures on the Archives site ended in August 1931, and ground was finally broken on September 5. Meanwhile, razing of the ICC/Labor site was also completed by the first of September, and excavation work began shortly thereafter.