In yesterday’s photo of a streetcar is repainted as a “Flying Tiger” we saw the US Post Office Terminal Annex building in the background. It’s such an imposing building that I thought I would feature it today with this photo. Opening in May 1940, it stands next to Union Railway Station (which had opened a year before, in April 1939) at 900 N. Alameda St. It’s impressively grand for a building whose purpose was to sort the mail, which it did until 1998. This photo is from 1940, so the building was still brand new.
Here’s another shot, circa 1940s:
The building is still around and now houses a data center as well as a small post office. Someone on Twitter said that it’s also rented out for film & television, and that he had worked in the interior on a couple of productions. This image is from February 2022.
Originally, the Railway Mail Service (RMS) pre-sorted the long distance stuff enroute in Railway Post Office (RPO) cars, or transferred bundles in special sealed mail/express or mail/baggage combination cars. All these cars came in to the station lead tracks and ended up at the Terminal Annex. Pacific Electric, at he far end of the passenger terminal, handled regional delivery of packages (some mail routes existed too). The rise of airmail before this place was constructed may have relieved some of total handling by then. Years later, Highway Postal routes (HPO) began cutting into the rail business and it was then terminated as far as the RPO’s (sealed cars continued). This did in the passenger business as “head end” revenues dropped off making it less desirable to keep losing money on the passengers. The result? AMTRAK. Don’t all break out laughing at the same time.
Strange how every building these days has to have fencing all around it. It sure does take away from the beautiful architecture.
Cool. Even better pics than yesterday.