Not everyone likes them. One magazine...was it New York? Complained that they were annoying examples of 1930's "social realism" and not worth preserving...
Post Office Buildings With Character, and Maybe a Sale Price
Jim Wilson/The New York Times
The main post office in Berkeley, Calif., includes a mural of the city’s history painted by Suzanne Scheuer.
By ROBIN POGREBIN
Published: March 7, 2013 190 Comments
SANTA MONICA, Calif. — The lines are often long inside the Art Deco post
office here under the palm trees. But few people complain these days
when they visit that New Deal-era building.
PhotographsPostal Service Looks to Sell Historic Buildings
Many buildings currently owned by the Postal
Service are for sale, or are being considered for sale. Preservation
groups say some of the buildings are architecturally significant and
that their design elements and historic features should be protected.
2000 ALLSTON WAY, BERKELEY, CALIF.
SALE BEING CONSIDEREDThis
1915 building, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, has a
tile-roofed Renaissance design. Marble columns support the vaulted
arches over the main entrance.
Jim Wilson/The New York Times
558 GRAND CONCOURSE, BRONX
SALE BEING CONSIDEREDThis
1935 building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and
features tall arched windows and a gallery of work by Ben Shahn, a
leading Social Realist artist.
David W. Dunlap/The New York Times
1215 31ST STREET NW, WASHINGTON
UNDER CONTRACTThis
1858 building, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, was
designed in the Renaissance Revival-Italian Palace style, with an
elaborate stone cornice that crowns the building.
Christopher Gregory/The New York Times
380 HAMILTON AVENUE, PALO ALTO, CALIF.
SALE BEING CONSIDEREDThis
1933 building, listed on the National Register of Historic Places,
features an open arcaded section of eight bays with round arches. There
are ornamental bronze transoms above the double entrance doors at either
end of the building.
USPS
340 MAIN STREET, NORWICH, CONN.
ON MARKETThis
1905 building, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, was
constructed of brick and stone with a portico of four fluted ionic
columns at the entry. The building was designed as a monument to
symbolize Federal ideas.
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
14 BRIDGE SQUARE, NORTHFIELD, MINN.
ON MARKETThis
1936 building, constructed during the New Deal, is a cornerstone of the
Northfield Downtown Historic District. Though on the market, it remains
in operation as a post office.
USPS
217 WEST 18TH STREET, MANHATTAN
SALE BEING CONSIDEREDThis
1939 Colonial Revival building, listed on the National Register of
Historic Places, is known for its red brick facade and limestone
interior, along with two relief panels of a bear and a deer carved by
the artist Paul Fiene in 1938.
Fred R. Conrad/The New York
421 ATLANTIC STREET, STAMFORD, CONN.
UNDER CONTRACTThis
1917 building, listed on the National Register of Historic Places,
features a pair of monumental granite steps and balustrades that provide
access up to a landscaped terrace.
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
20 PALMER SQUARE, PRINCETON, N.J.
SALE BEING CONSIDEREDThis
1937 classic revival building is within a historic district. The
interior mural, from 1939, depicts an encounter between Native Americans
and European colonists and has drawn some criticism for being racially
insensitive.
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
101 EAST GAY STREET, WEST CHESTER, PA.
SALE BEING CONSIDEREDThis
1906 building is located within a historic district and is made of
Cockeysville marble, one of the same materials used on the Washington
Monument.
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
1248 FIFTH STREET, SANTA MONICA, CALIF.
SALE BEING CONSIDEREDThis
1938 Art Deco building features classically inspired pilasters capped
with stylized Corinthian capitals. Preservationists seek to ensure that
the wood-paneled lobby is protected.
Ethan Pines for The New York Times
Postal Service Looks to Sell Historic Buildings
A sortable calendar of noteworthy cultural events in the New York region, selected by Times critics.
Jim Wilson/The New York Times
Josh Kornbluth, in character as Ben Franklin,
speaking to protesters fighting the possible sale of a post office in
Berkeley, Calif. The office is one of about 200 that the Postal Service
might sell.
The Capital Newspaper
Buildings that the financially struggling Postal
Service is considering for sale include the one in Annapolis, Md.
Readers’ Comments
Readers shared their thoughts on this article.
They are glad to get their mail, send off a package and maybe chat a bit
while they still can. In December, the government said it planned to
sell it.
“We don’t know what’s going to happen to this beautiful, Depression-era
architectural jewel,” said Sara Meric, 87, a retired script analyst who
has used this post office since 1959. “If, God forbid, this slaughter
does go through, some entity should make sure that this building is
protected.”
The Santa Monica post office, with its distinctive PWA Moderne style, is
one of about 200 post offices around the country, dozens of them
architecturally distinctive buildings, that the Postal Service has
indicated it may choose to sell in coming years because of its financial
problems.
Eleven historic post offices are already on the market in places like
Yankton, S.D.; Gulfport, Miss.; Norwich, Conn.; and Washington.
In many cases the buildings have not only been community hubs, but also
remain among the most architecturally distinguished buildings in their
towns, legacies of New Deal efforts to put America back to work.
So as the Postal Service tries to shrink, it is often finding itself in
battle with groups trying to prevent what the National Trust for
Historic Preservation last year labeled one of the most significant
threats to the country’s architectural heritage.
“Unless the U.S. Postal Service establishes a clear, consistent process
that follows federal preservation law when considering disposal of these
buildings, a significant part of the nation’s architectural heritage
will be at risk,” the trust said in a citation that placed historic post offices on its most endangered list.
When these post offices close, preservationists say, important public
buildings become private preserves as they are refurbished into
commercial spaces like high-end retail stores. Though many of the
buildings’ exteriors are protected by local landmark laws, many of the
interiors are not and developers tend to make changes like renovating
lobbies.
In one case, a post office built in 1937 without protected status was
demolished. That building, in Virginia Beach, was knocked down in 2009
to make room for a Walgreens, despite attempts to save it.
“There are lots of quite significant post office buildings that are
threatened because the Postal Service itself is threatened,” said G.
Martin Moeller Jr., a senior curator at the National Building Museum in
Washington.
The Postal Service lost $15.9 billion
last year, and last month announced it was considering eliminating
Saturday letter service. It says that the real estate sales raise
revenue and save on operating costs, and that the shuttered post offices
are those where the number of customers had declined, or where it found
a less-expensive alternate site.
“The trend has been to maintain the post offices that are operational
while saving money at the same time,” said Sue Brennan, a spokeswoman
for the service. “The Postal Service follows all applicable laws
regarding the disposal of historic buildings.”
There are some 31,000 retail postal offices in the country, most of them
leased. But roughly a quarter are government-owned and as many as 1,100
were built in the 1930s, when the government hired architects to design
civic buildings.
In 2011, the Postal Service identified about 3,700 post offices — some
leased, some owned, some historic and some not — that it said may have
to close in coming years to save money. When that plan met with
opposition, the service announced it would instead try to lower expenses
by reducing operating hours.
But even as postal officials agreed not to eliminate outlets in some
towns and cities, they did leave open the option to sell valuable
properties and relocate services. “Periodic sales of post offices will
be ongoing,” Ms. Brennan said.
The agency acknowledges that in recent years the sale of post office
buildings has accelerated, and in 2011 it hired CBRE, a commercial real
estate services firm, to handle the transactions.
“Our biggest concern is the way they’re going about it isn’t
transparent,” said Chris Morris, a senior field officer for the National
Trust and project manager for post office buildings. “A lot of us are
very confused about the process.”
Advocates say there have been too few public discussions or assurances that prized buildings will be protected.
Another person who is tracking the issue is Steve Hutkins, a New York University professor whose Web site, Save the Post Office,
attempts, among other things, to map the sale and possible sale of the
buildings. “They are losing iconic buildings,” said Mr. Hutkins, who
questioned whether the Postal Service is “artificially inflating the
seriousness of the deficit problem to justify downsizing.”
While the hundreds of post offices on the National Register of Historic
Places are not at risk of being demolished without government review,
some of their interiors are subject to alteration. Other post offices
have been sold with so-called covenants: legal stipulations that require
subsequent owners to maintain certain architectural features in
perpetuity, even if a property is transferred. And even without
protections, some buildings are unlikely targets for demolition because
they are so attractive, commercial realtors say.
A variety of these factors has worked to preserve the post office in
Greenwich, Conn., which was sold to the real estate magnate Peter Malkin
for more than $15 million in 2011. Mr. Malkin said he had met no
resistance to his plan to convert the Classical Revival building,
constructed in 1937 and listed on the National Register, into a
Restoration Hardware store.
“One of the reasons I became involved in the purchase of the building
was to protect it from being changed in any way,” he said.
The battles over the buildings seem most pronounced here in California,
where preservationists say they fear dozens of post offices may be sold.
Postal officials said such concerns were unfounded because there was no
such plan at this point in the state.
Nonetheless, concerns about the post offices “are overwhelming the state
historic preservation offices,” said Carol Lemlein, president of the
Santa Monica Conservancy.
“There is very little confidence in the Postal Service’s ability to
execute a process in a manner that will really protect the buildings,”
she added.
Last week, residents of Berkeley, Calif., rallied to protest the
possible sale of their main post office, while Glendale, Palo Alto and
La Jolla have also seen efforts to protest the possible sales of older
post offices.
In Ukiah, Calif., a post office on the National Register was sold last
August to a private developer despite opposition from area residents. No
plan for the building has been announced.
Last year, a post office in Venice, Calif., that was built in 1939 was
sold to the Hollywood producer Joel Silver (“Lethal Weapon,” “The
Matrix”), who is converting it into his company headquarters. As part of
a protective covenant agreement with Los Angeles, Mr. Silver’s
renovation must preserve the historic parts of the building.
Mr. Silver also agreed to restore and preserve a mural inside, “Story of
Venice,” by Edward Biberman, at a cost of $100,000. The agreement is
one of a number that have been created for murals that were made for
post offices. In Venice, though, some residents are upset that the
agreement stipulates that the mural can be publicly viewed just six
times a year and by appointment only.
Mr. Silver said through a spokesman that he planned to make the mural available to the public more often.
Even with legal protections in place, advocates say there is no
guarantee that these post offices will remain intact once sold. They say
such protections can be ignored or prove insufficient in the absence of
vigilant monitoring or explicit guidelines that specify which
architectural elements deserve protection.
“Unless these features are appropriately defined, the building can be
‘preserved’ without continuing to exhibit the features that made it
important in the first place,” said Ms. Lemlein of the Santa Monica
Conservancy.
In the building here on Fifth Street in Santa Monica, preservationists
point to Art Deco features of the exterior, to the wood paneling in the
public lobby and to the original light fixtures as elements worthy of
protection. They are trying to establish a covenant for the building,
which postal officials said in a letter last December to the State
Historic Preservation Office was, “slated for sale,” though it has yet
to be listed.
The city joined in Representative Henry A. Waxman’s appeal of the Postal Service’s decision to close the post office.
“I think they got it wrong,” Mr. Waxman said in an interview. “It’s a
Depression-era structure, it’s an historic structure, one of the few Art
Deco buildings in Santa Monica.”
The first goal is to keep the post office as a post office,
preservationists say. But if it has to be sold, they say they want to
ensure that any new owner is sensitive to the building’s cherished
history and architectural distinction.
“It could be a restaurant, a store, offices,” said Adrian Scott Fine,
the Los Angeles Conservancy’s director of advocacy, “as long as you keep
those features that define the building.”
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