Post Office No Longer Typecast in Mail Roles

Film cameras, not mail carts, are rolling at Los Angeles’ best-known postal facility.

The historic Terminal Annex post office has been converted into a semi-permanent film studio for a new network television series about mobsters and undercover cops.

If the show “EZ Streets” turns out to be a hit, officials say, the twin-towered landmark near the Civic Center could be filled with sets and backdrops for years.

Terminal Annex was Los Angeles’ main mail-handling facility for half a century. It was replaced in 1989 by a larger mail-processing center in South-Central Los Angeles, although clerks manned service windows in its ornate lobby until last summer, when a smaller post office opened half a block away.

Postal officials have contracted with a private developer, the Ratkovich Villanueva Partnership, to renovate the old, non-air-conditioned building and subdivide it into office space that would be rented out as part of an 18-acre urban renewal project. But the $50-million refurbishing has been stalled by the downtown area’s soft commercial real estate market.

Like so many other Hollywood deals, a little nepotism was involved in landing a film role for Terminal Annex, it turns out.

Movie producer Steve Tisch rented the building last year to film scenes for his upcoming Paramount Pictures release, “Dear God.” The comedy stars Greg Kinnear as a con artist who works in a dead-letter office where mail addressed to God ends up. “My father was postmaster general for 20 months during the Reagan administration. I asked him to make a call to open some doors,” Tisch said. “That was extremely helpful--it all fell very smoothly into place.”

“EZ Streets” producer Paul Haggis noticed Tisch at work in the old post office and signed up to use the space when Tisch moved out. Haggis said he convinced Universal Studios that the 500,000-square-foot building could be converted into a virtually self-contained studio where elaborate sets could be repeatedly used without having to be taken down. So once again Terminal Annex is humming. But actors have replaced letter carriers and scripts are being read instead of ZIP codes and addresses.

Set-building carpenters and painters have installed a wood shop in the first-floor area where for generations Los Angeles’ certified mail was sorted.

The nearby front lobby--decorated with WPA murals and Art Deco postal service windows installed during President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal--remains untouched. It doubles as City Hall in the TV series.

Second-floor offices formerly used by postal administrators now house the series’ writers, film editors, casting managers and other production staffers.

Toward the center of the building, the former cafeteria has been transformed into a mock casino. Farther back, where letter-sorting machines and optical ZIP Code readers once operated, a former postal supervisor’s office has been turned into a fake forensics lab cluttered with worn furnishings and equipment.

About 25 other permanent sets are scattered about third- and fourth-floor areas previously filled with rows of letter cases used for manual mail sorting.

Terminal Annex’s sturdy, earthquake-resistant construction has been a challenge to set designers. That’s because there are 44-inch concrete columns positioned every 24 feet.

“It’s like a puzzle fitting things in,” said Larry Bennett, the show’s production manager, who remembers making late-night trips to Terminal Annex on April 15 to mail tax returns.

A mock-up of a bar used as a hangout by a mobster portrayed by actor Joe Pantoliano is angled around several pillars. The sprawling post office fits the gritty mood of the show, Pantoliano said. “You feel the history in here,” he said. “You really get a sense of being the underdog in this building.”

No post office-themed episodes are planned for the series, although a basement pistol target range used by postal inspectors may find itself written into a future script, said David Latt, a co-executive producer.

Latt said about two-dozen episodes a year will be filmed at the former post office for the CBS show, which debuts with a two-hour premier Oct. 27.

Actors will be welcome at Terminal Annex as long as the redevelopment project is delayed, according to Clare De Briere, development manager for the Ratkovich Villanueva Partnership. The government is being paid $23,500 a month rent for the filming, according to postal officials.

But once development starts, she said, the lease will be canceled faster than a 32-cent stamp.