Terminal Annex

Fifty-five years of history ended Friday as Los Angeles Postmaster Jesse Durazo formally padlocked the doors at the Postal Service's landmark Terminal Annex facility in Downtown Los Angeles. The building, built under the auspices of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal and declared a National Historical Place in 1985, is being closed for renovations.

The U.S. Postal Service has tentatively agreed to sell historic Terminal Annex in downtown Los Angeles to a Texas developer, which plans to transform the former postal facility into a giant telecommunication and high-technology center. Officials from Dallas-based Nexcomm Properties, the Postal Service and the city of Los Angeles are expected to unveil plans today for the $60-million project, which could attract as many as 1,000 new workers to the central city.

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.

The Art Center College of Design, one of the nation's most prominent art schools, said it is considering the former Terminal Annex post office in downtown Los Angeles as a new home for its 1,700 full-time students and faculty. The potential move, prompted by the school's need to expand, could prove a major boost for downtown Los Angeles as it struggles to reinvent itself as a regional center for culture and entertainment.

Woe and misery seemed inevitable. Going to a post office at Christmastime is a little like visiting Disneyland--except that there, after you spend eternity in line, at least you get to go on a ride. At the U.S.

The U.S. Postal Service has tentatively agreed to sell historic Terminal Annex in downtown Los Angeles to a Texas developer, which plans to transform the former postal facility into a giant telecommunication and high-technology center. Officials from Dallas-based Nexcomm Properties, the Postal Service and the city of Los Angeles are expected to unveil plans today for the $60-million project, which could attract as many as 1,000 new workers to the central city.

Return to sender . . . 42 years later? Yes, but this time it was not the post office's fault, authorities pointed out Thursday, as they returned two undelivered letters to Joe Torres of East Los Angeles. Torres had written them during World War II. What happened, postal spokesman David Mazer said, was this: Torres was among 92 servicemen stationed in Algeria who handed more than 235 pieces of mail to a buddy going home in 1944. The buddy was instructed to drop them in a mailbox.

Postal clerk Oree Gaither has a simple philosophy about calling in sick: He never does. He hasn't in about 42 years. It's been so long since Gaither missed a day because he was ill, in fact, that he has accumulated more than 3,800 hours of sick time--more than two years' worth, the way the U.S. Postal Service figures things. He was recently honored as one of 15 postal workers who've been sick so infrequently, they have each reached at least the 3,000-hour plateau.

In the last seconds before everything degenerated into tourists' shrieks, mariachi bands and great hisses of steam that made words impossible, two of the great old locomotives of the past met Friday afternoon on railroad tracks northeast of downtown. One coming from the west, the other from the east, the two steam locomotives traveled side by side Friday for the last half-mile of railroad tracks into Union Station to kick off the terminal's 50th anniversary celebration. The locomotives had thundered through mountain and desert to get to Union Station, where a crowd of about 1,000 railroad buffs, spectators and workers cheered as the two pampered survivors of the age of steam came to rest.

It has done little or no good, backers of Gov. George Deukmejian's plan for a new prison have discovered, to point out to opponents that the site he favors is not really in East Los Angeles, but a couple of miles to the west--on the far side of the Los Angeles River. Strictly speaking, the unincorporated Los Angeles County area labeled East Los Angeles is bordered on the west by the Boyle Heights area of the City of Los Angeles, which lies between it and the cement-lined river channel.

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.

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.

Fifty-five years of history ended Friday as Los Angeles Postmaster Jesse Durazo formally padlocked the doors at the Postal Service's landmark Terminal Annex facility in Downtown Los Angeles. The building, built under the auspices of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal and declared a National Historical Place in 1985, is being closed for renovations.

Woe and misery seemed inevitable. Going to a post office at Christmastime is a little like visiting Disneyland--except that there, after you spend eternity in line, at least you get to go on a ride. At the U.S.

In the last seconds before everything degenerated into tourists' shrieks, mariachi bands and great hisses of steam that made words impossible, two of the great old locomotives of the past met Friday afternoon on railroad tracks northeast of downtown. One coming from the west, the other from the east, the two steam locomotives traveled side by side Friday for the last half-mile of railroad tracks into Union Station to kick off the terminal's 50th anniversary celebration. The locomotives had thundered through mountain and desert to get to Union Station, where a crowd of about 1,000 railroad buffs, spectators and workers cheered as the two pampered survivors of the age of steam came to rest.

Postal clerk Oree Gaither has a simple philosophy about calling in sick: He never does. He hasn't in about 42 years. It's been so long since Gaither missed a day because he was ill, in fact, that he has accumulated more than 3,800 hours of sick time--more than two years' worth, the way the U.S. Postal Service figures things. He was recently honored as one of 15 postal workers who've been sick so infrequently, they have each reached at least the 3,000-hour plateau.

The delivery of an estimated 1.5 million letters was delayed for a day in parts of Los Angeles by an 8 1/2-hour power blackout that virtually halted operations at the downtown Terminal Annex Post Office, the largest mail operation in the West, officials said Friday. But flat packages, magazines and newspapers were not affected by the outage, termed by officials to be the biggest ever to hit Terminal Annex, which handles about 8.3 million pieces of mail daily. U.S.

Los Angeles area residents intending to go to the post office today may be in for a surprise as postal officials, seeking to cut $160 million from this year's operating budget, have closed down 21 offices on Saturdays and shortened weekday hours at more than 110 others. Mail delivery will still continue on Saturdays. However, there will no longer be Sunday pickup or processing, adding a one-day delay to mail delivery during the week.

It has done little or no good, backers of Gov. George Deukmejian's plan for a new prison have discovered, to point out to opponents that the site he favors is not really in East Los Angeles, but a couple of miles to the west--on the far side of the Los Angeles River. Strictly speaking, the unincorporated Los Angeles County area labeled East Los Angeles is bordered on the west by the Boyle Heights area of the City of Los Angeles, which lies between it and the cement-lined river channel.