US Post Office Los Angeles, Terminal Annex

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Terminal Annex Building (2008)

The US Post Office Los Angeles, Terminal Annex was the central mail sorting point in Los Angeles from 1940 to 1989 . It is located on Alameda Street near Union Station . The Mission Revival Style building was designed by Gilbert Stanley Underwood and listed on January 11, 1985 as a Monument on the National Register of Historic Places .

Construction and inauguration

Terminal Annex 2008

The Terminal Annex was built in 1939–1940 by the construction company Sarver & Zoss contracting. The building should be used for the distribution of all incoming and outgoing mail in Los Angeles. Although this made the building a functional structure, the architect Gilbert Stanley Underwood tried to adapt the architecture of the construction of the Union Station across the street in May 1939. Originally the three-story building had two towers and covered around 37,000 square meters.

The new building cost three million US dollars and was commissioned in May 1940 with 1,632 employees who at that time handled two million mail items a day. The facility, which was open around the clock, corresponded to the latest technical standards and was equipped with the most modern technology of the time and was considered the most modern and economical post office in the United States at the time of commissioning. At the official opening ceremony in June 1940, the postmaster described the building as a symbol of the achievements of democracy, while the monuments of Europe are being reduced to rubble (“at a time when the monuments of Europe were 'being ground in the dust'). ")

Expansion to increase capacity

Ten years after completion, the mail volume in Los Angeles had exceeded the capacity of the new building. As a result, plans were announced in 1950 to expand the post office, including a five-story parcel post office building, for an investment of $ 12 million.

In the 1980s the expanded capacities were also exhausted. In the mid-1980s, up to 14 million mail items were processed every day, and the complex suffered from a lack of space, overload and inadequate workplaces. That is why the postal administration decided in 1984 to build a new building costing 151 million US dollars in south-central Los Angeles . After almost 50 years of operation, the main post office was relocated in 1989. The counter hall in the ornate lobby remained open to the public until it was closed in 1995. The Terminal Annex Building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places because of its architectural style.

Scandals and incidents

A number of scandals and incidents occurred in it during its period of use as a post office, some of the more famous being:

  • 1954 the indictment of two postal workers who operated a bookmaking ring inside the building , to which ten to fifteen other employees worked.
  • 1970 the shooting of a post attendant by a drunken counter clerk.
  • In 1978 a pipe bomb exploded in a sorting room, injuring six workers.
  • In 1985 there was an eight-and-a-half-hour power failure, which left around one and a half million items of mail.
  • 1986 the discovery of a cocaine dealer ring to which 12 postal workers belonged.

See also

Web links

Commons : US Post Office Los Angeles, Terminal Annex  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Entry in the National Register Information System . National Park Service , accessed June 2, 2016
  2. ↑ Post Office Annex Costing $ 2,000,000 Making Progress , Los Angeles Times. May 15, 1939. 
  3. ^ Near Union Station , Los Angeles Times. December 10, 1939. 
  4. ^ A b New Postal Annex Opens: Washington Officials Inspect $ 3,000,000 Structure , Los Angeles Times. May 28, 1940. 
  5. ↑ a b Opening of New Postoffice Set: Operation of New Terminal Annex to Begin at 8 am Tomorrow , Los Angeles Times. May 26, 1940. 
  6. ^ Postal Annex Dedicated: Building Called Finest of Type in Country; 500 Attended Observance , Los Angeles Times. June 23, 1940. 
  7. ^ Postal Annex Expansion to Cost $ 12,000,000: Government Buys Five Acres of Land for Parcel Post and Other Buildings , Los Angeles Times. February 14, 1950. 
  8. ^ Leo F. Buscaglia: Living and Loving: Sending a Love Letter to the Post Office , Los Angeles Times. May 12, 1985. 
  9. ↑ George Ramos: Terminal Annex Power Blackout Delays LA Mail , Los Angeles Times. May 25, 1985. 
  10. ↑ a b George Ramos: 1.5 Million Pieces of Mail Undelivered in Power Loss: Delivery Promised Saturday , Los Angeles Times. May 24, 1985. 
  11. ↑ 2 Post Office Buildings Declared landmarks , Los Angeles Times. May 14, 1985. 
  12. ^ Post Office Suspends Two as Bookmakers: Veteran Mail Clerks Accused as Ringleaders With 10 or 15 More Working for Them , Los Angeles Times. January 25, 1954. 
  13. ^ Post Office Supervisor Shot to Death; Co-Worker Arrested , Los Angeles Times. August 14, 1970. 
  14. ^ Bomb in Parcel Explodes at Post Office, Injures Six , Los Angeles Times. 3rd February 1978. 
  15. ↑ 12 Named as Cocaine Pushers After 5-Month Probe at LA Post Office , Los Angeles Times. June 27, 1986. 

Coordinates: 34 ° 3 ′ 36 "  N , 118 ° 14 ′ 7"  W.