Post Office Adds Zip at New Facility

David Mazer steered the yellow electrical cart through the 31-acre building, honking at a pedestrian straying within the guidelines on the floor. He parked by a mass of humming and clicking machines.

“Here’s a machine that’ll blow your mind,” he said, waving toward an optical character reader that scans ZIP codes on 9,000 letters a second and sprays on a computer sorting code. “We live by ZIP codes.”

It’s a far cry from the old days when “people threw mail into wooden cases,” said Mazer, a communications manager with the U.S. Postal Service.

And the huge complex in South Los Angeles that houses the city’s new main post office is a far cry from the 50-year-old building it officially replaced Saturday.

Processing 6.7 million pieces of mail a day within a space equivalent to 10 football fields, the new Central Avenue site is the largest single-story postal facility in the country.

Construction began in 1985 and is costing about $151 million. When everyone moves in, it will house 5,500 postal workers. At 1.1 million square feet, the plant is about 40% larger than the Terminal Annex office 6 miles to the north, which will still provide basic mailing services.

Perched on 74 acres amid rundown businesses, the sprawling gray and green plant is ultra-modern, a study in rectangles, with skylights bathing several atriums.

The environs are a different story. Rubble-strewn lots, aged buildings with rusted metal fences and second-hand auto parts yards surround the site, bordered to the north and south by Gage and Florence avenues.

It could not be more unlike the Spanish-style, four-story building with brass doors that served as the hub of postal services in Southern California until late Friday. No murals depicting the missionary heritage of California. No dark, groin vaulted interiors in earth tones. No inlaid tile floors and carved mable walls.

During a farewell party Friday at the annex, next to Union Station, employees hung signs saying, “Good-bye TA” and “We love you, TA.”

“It’s like throwing away an old shoe,” said Stanley Steinberg, the supervisor of window service and a 17-year veteran of the annex who will stay put. “It’ll still be a quite busy station, but it’ll be more of a neighborhood-type station. It’s sad, but it’s progress.”

Poor air conditioning in the summer and a heating system that took three days to groan into operation made the annex a less than hospitable place to sort mail.

The annex, which is listed on the National Historic Registry, will be jointly managed by the Postal Service and the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency. King said the unused portion may be converted into shops or restaurants if zoning changes are approved.

For now, however, only memories linger in the dusty spaces.

Steinberg strolled by the empty loading docks where he started his career by hauling bags of mail on and off trucks. Friday night the fleet of trucks rumbled out for the last time, leaving only scraps of trampled plastic and paper.

“A lot of history is going to be left sitting here,” he said. “The ghosts are going to echo in this building.”

Cramped and grimy with well-worn wood floors and painted metal machine surfaces burnished to a dull shine, the annex was strained to capacity, Steinberg said.

Postmaster Charles King agreed the annex was very inefficient, “wasting a lot of time moving mail up and down (the floors). For modern mail movement, it was not convenient, not nearly as convenient as this place here.”

The new complex, designed by Albert C. Martin of Los Angeles, boasts the largest mail transport system in the country, with more than 2 miles of conveyor belts.

In a sapling-planted foyer, workers trundled file cabinets over boards laid above the newly set tile.

And what will the result be of all this high-tech gadgetry? Not faster service, officials said. They say they do a pretty good job anyway. But Southern California’s mail needs are assured of being met for the next 20 years.

Including junk mail?

“We don’t use that word,” Mazer said, taken aback slightly. “You’re talking about bulk business mail or third-class advertising mail.”

Some of the new customers seemed pleased with the facility. Said one letter-toting man: “This is nice; they really outdid themselves.”

But the employees had mixed feelings about the change.

“The move didn’t hit until last night,” said Herschel Mays, who has worked at the annex for “29 years, 7 months.” “After 30 years you have to miss it.”

“We’re going to miss the old building,” Cynthia Cain echoed. “This is something totally different. It’s all right here. It’s just hard finding your way back from the bathroom.”