|
US Post Office
Los Angeles Terminal Annex |
|
|
Terminal Annex in 2008
|
|
|
|
|
| Location: | 900 N. Alameda St., Los Angeles, California |
|---|---|
| Built: | 1940 |
| Architect: | Gilbert Stanley Underwood |
| Architectural style: | Mission Revival-Spanish Colonial Revival |
| Governing body: | U.S. Postal Service |
| MPS: | US Post Office in California 1900-1941 TR |
| NRHP Reference#: |
85000131 [1] |
| Added to NRHP: | January 11, 1985 |
The U.S. Post Office - Los Angeles Terminal Annex was the central mail processing facility located on Alameda Steet near Union Station in Los Angeles, California from 1940 to 1989. The Mission Revival and Spanish Colonial Revival building designed by Gilbert Stanley Underwood was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.
Contents |
Designed by Gilbert Stanley Underwood, the Terminal Annex was built by the Sarver & Zoss contracting firm from 1939 to 1940. The building was built for the purpose of processing all incoming and outgoing mail in Los Angeles. Though its purpose was principally utilitarian, Underwood sought to keep the building's design in keeping with the city's Union Station, which opened across the street in May 1939. The original building was a three-story structure with two towers and 400,000 square feet (37,000 m2) of floor space.[2][3]
The $3 million postal annex opened in May 1940 with 1,632 postal clerks, carriers and laborers responsible for the processing of 2,000,000 pieces of mail per day.[4] The facility, which was kept open 24 hours a day, was equipped with the latest facilities for rapid handling of mail, including conveyors, chutes, weighing machines, cancelling machines, and sorting and facing tables.[4][5] At the time of its opening, it was considered "the most modern and efficient" post office in the nation.[5] At the formal dedication ceremony in June 1940, the postmaster called the annex a symbol of the achievements of democracy, opening at a time when the monuments of Europe were "being ground in the dust."[6]
Only ten years after its opening, the demands of the city's mail had already outgrown the facility. Accordingly, the Post Office announced plans in 1950 for a $12 million expansion, including an adjoining five-story parcel post building and other structures as well.[7]
During nearly 50 years as the city's central postal processing facility, the Terminal Annex suffered a number of scandals and tragedies, including the following:
By the 1980s, the operations had outgrown even the expanded facilities at the Terminal Annex. The facility's volume had grown by the mid-1980s to 14 million pieces of mail per day,[13] and the annex was plagued by inadequate space, overcrowding and inadequate work areas.[14] Accordingly, the Postal Service Board of Governors in 1984 approved the construction of a new $151 million general post office in South-Central Los Angeles.[11] Almost 50 years after Terminal Annex became the city's main mail-processing facility, the new processing facility in South Central opened in 1989. Despite the move of the processing facility, the customer service windows in the Terminal Annex's ornate lobby remain open.
When the Postal Service moved out of the building in 1995, it was used as a film location for the motion picture Dear God in 1995 and for the CBS television series EZ Streets in 1996. Producers used the lobby, decorated with WPA murals, to represent City Hall.[15]
It was also turned into a hospital, complete with an emergency room entrance, for the movie City of Angels.
The Terminal Annex building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985 based on its architectural style.[16]
|
||||||||||||||||||||