The United States Post Office – Los Angeles Terminal Annex, also known simply as Terminal Annex, located at 900 North Alameda Street in

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

, was the central mail processing facility for Los Angeles, from 1940 to 1989. Across

Cesar Chavez Avenue Cesar Chavez Avenue (Spanish: Avenida César Chávez) is a major east–west thoroughfare in Downtown Los Angeles, the Eastside and East Los Angeles, measuring 6.19 miles (9.96 km) in length. Named in honor of union leader César Chávez, t ...

from

Union Station A union station (also known as a union terminal, a joint station in Europe, and a joint-use station in Japan) is a railway station at which the tracks and facilities are shared by two or more separate railway companies, allowing passengers to ...

, the

Mission Revival The Mission Revival style was part of an architectural movement, beginning in the late 19th century, for the revival and reinterpretation of American colonial styles. Mission Revival drew inspiration from the late 18th and early 19th century ...

and

Spanish Colonial Revival The Spanish Colonial Revival Style ( es, Arquitectura neocolonial española) is an architectural stylistic movement arising in the early 20th century based on the Spanish Colonial architecture of the Spanish colonization of the Americas. In the ...

building of Terminal Annex, which was designed by

Gilbert Stanley Underwood Gilbert Stanley Underwood (1890–1960) was an American architect best known for his National Park lodges. Born in 1890, Underwood received his B.A. from Yale in 1920 and a M.A. from Harvard in 1923. After opening an office in Los Angeles that ...

, was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

in 1985.

Construction and opening

, 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 of floor space. The $3 million postal annex opened in May 1940 with 1,632 postal clerks, carriers and laborers responsible for the processing of 2 million pieces of mail per day. 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. At the time of its opening, it was considered "the most modern and efficient" post office in the nation. 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."

Expansion to meet increased volume

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.

Scandals and tragedies

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: *In 1954, two veteran postal employees were charged with being the ringleaders of two large bookmaking operations operating out of the Terminal Annex. Investigators alleged that 10-15 other employees were involved in the operations. *In 1970, a postal supervisor was shot and killed at the Terminal Annex by a disgruntled postal clerk. After the supervisor ordered the clerk to leave work for intoxication, the clerk waited outside the annex and shot the supervisor in the back three times as the supervisor ran toward the security desk, calling for help. *In 1978, a pipe bomb, wrapped in a package, exploded in a sorting room at the Terminal Annex, slightly injuring six postal workers. *In 1985, a malfunctioning voltage line in the basement of the Terminal Annex caused an -hour power blackout that halted operations at the facility. The power outage resulted in a one-day delay in the delivery of 1.5 million pieces of mail and was front-page news in the ''Los Angeles Times''. *In 1986, 12 postal workers employed at the Terminal Annex were charged as alleged pushers of both powder and rock cocaine.

Insufficient space leads to construction of South Los Angeles facility

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, and the annex was plagued by inadequate space, overcrowding and inadequate work areas. Accordingly, the Postal Service Board of Governors in 1984 approved the construction of a new $151 million general post office in

South Los Angeles South Los Angeles, also known as South Central Los Angeles or simply South Central, is a region in southwestern Los Angeles County, lying mostly within the city limits of Los Angeles, south of downtown. It is "defined on Los Angeles city maps as a ...

. Almost 50 years after Terminal Annex became the city's main mail-processing facility, the new processing facility in South Central opened in 1989. The site is currently used as a data center. As of December 2015 the lobby level houses a postal counter with stamp sales and provides mail pick-up for customers who rent mail boxes.

Filming locations

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 WPA may refer to: Computing *Wi-Fi Protected Access, a wireless encryption standard *Windows Product Activation, in Microsoft software licensing * Wireless Public Alerting (Alert Ready), emergency alerts over LTE in Canada * Windows Performance An ...

murals, to represent City Hall. It was also turned into a hospital, complete with an emergency room entrance, for the movie '' City of Angels.''

Data center

Most of the building has been leased to

CoreSite CoreSite, a subsidiary of American Tower, owns carrier-neutral data centers and provides colocation and peering services to prolific spammers. As of June 24, 2022 the company owned 27 operating data center facilities in 10 markets comprising ...

as their LA2 data center. Like all data centers, it is a secure facility, and not open to the public.

Murals

The lobby includes 12

Section of Painting and Sculpture The Treasury Section of Painting and Sculpture was a New Deal art project established on October 16, 1934, and administered by the Procurement Division of the United States Department of the Treasury. Commonly known as the Section, it was rena ...

murals painted by Boris Deutsch during 1941 to 1944.

Historic designation

The Terminal Annex building was listed on the

in 1985 based on its architectural style. with

References

External links

{{National Register of Historic Places, state=collapsed Government buildings in Los Angeles Buildings and structures in Downtown Los Angeles Former post office buildings Government buildings completed in 1940 Post office buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Los Angeles 1940s architecture in the United States 1940 establishments in California Gilbert Stanley Underwood buildings Mission Revival architecture in California Moorish Revival architecture in California Spanish Colonial Revival architecture in California