The Post Office

A conversation on one of the Phoenix history pages of Facebook got me thinking about the thousands of cuts that bled downtown nearly to death. It was about the old Main Post Office at Central and Fillmore, now mostly used by ASU but contained some incomplete or wrong information. Still, a useful jumping off point.

Back in 2013, I wrote a three-part series entitled "What Killed Downtown" (see here, here, and here). It's still the gold standard on the subject. But the tale of the Post Office illuminates it in microcosm.

This lovely Spanish-revival building was completed in 1936, designed by Lescher & Mahoney, the architects responsible for many of Phoenix's finest buildings. Among them are the Orpheum Theater, Brophy College Chapel, El Zariba Shrine Auditorium (former home to the Arizona Mining and Mineral Museum), Phoenix Title and Trust Building (today's Orpheum Lofts), Hanny's, and the Palms Theater.

It was planned in the 1920s to replace the Post Office segment of the old Federal Building in the government block at Van Buren and First Avenue. With Sen. Carl Hayden's backing, it was originally intended to be six stories tall and closer to the central business district. But because of expensive land, the site was move north across from the new Westward Ho and the height was lowered. Building it was among the myriad federal projects that lifted Phoenix out of the Great Depression.

The plaque inside the door had the year of the building's completion and "Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States." Above that was "James A. Farley, Postmaster General." The Postmaster General was a member of the cabinet until the 1960s. The Founding Fathers saw the Post Office as an essential part of knitting the nation, of the national interest. It was no more expected to make a profit as the armed forces. Jim Farley was also FDR's campaign manager and chief political fixer.

When I was a little boy in the 1960s, this was the still the main Phoenix Post Office, close to Union Station where rail-borne mail was loaded and unloaded (the Southern Pacific had a long daily mail train in each direction, as well as mail carried on regular passenger trains). The loading dock on the south side of the building was busy with delivery vans and three-wheel "mailsters." Mailmen in pith helmets and rolling carts served downtown offices and stores. It also housed numerous federal offices on upper floors.

The building was also near healthy residential neighborhoods and on the busy Central Avenue bus lines. That it was beautifully landscaped wasn't surprising because nearly everything in old Phoenix was similarly graced.

I recall two things vividly. One was murals from the WPA artists project (which I believe survive). Another was a blind man with a stall at one end of the long lobby who sold candy and cigarettes, with people paying and taking change from a cup. "No one would steal from a blind man," my grandmother said. And it was true in an era when most people operated by conventional rules of conduct.

But here's where the story veers off the Facebook narrative, simply because so few people remember Phoenix.

In 1967, the federal government began canceling the mail contracts with the railroads in favor of trucks (not smart, now that we know about climate change). This was the death warrant for hundreds of passenger trains that depended on this revenue, including most that served Phoenix. In addition, the main Post Office, built for a town of 48,000, was inadequate for a city of more than 581,000.

But rather than building a new main Post Office in or near downtown (and land was abundant), the government built at 14th Street and Buckeye Road. It was far from downtown and accessible only by car. The same is true for today's sun-blasted, gravel-strewn main Post Office at 50th Street and Van Buren. And in place of an inspiring edifice, we got bland tilt-up crap.

The old main remained open, but one of countless opportunities to keep useful offices and businesses downtown, reachable by transit or walking, reachable by average people, was lost. One essential piece of keeping downtown's center of gravity intact was lost. How could city leaders let this happen?

So, today's downtown and central-city revival is welcome and, given the dead decades, astonishing. But it's limited. The many assets that make a real downtown — from the Post Office to intercity bus and trains stations to useful shops and such surviving retailers catering to average and poor people as Newberries, Woolworths, and Kress — are gone. Or, as with the Post Office, turned into a boutique amenity largely for ASU students. It's better than nothing, but not the essential human-centric bones that were retained in America's best downtowns. And I don't know how to revive them here.

The building was saved, at least. So many weren't so fortunate, including some of the city's gems.

The Post Office — Gallery (click on image for a larger view):

A switch engine moves mail and express cars to be loaded and unloaded at Union Station. Next stop for much of this will be the main Post Office.

The new main Post Office soon after opening. Directly across Fillmore Street is the Hotel Westward Ho.

Check out the connectivity of the Post Office with nearby businesses. This is a parade in the 1940s.

Here's the Salad Bowl parade going past the building in the late 1940s (McCulloch Bros. Collection/ASU Archives).

Still vibrant downtown Phoenix circa 1960, with the Post Office roof at right. Most of this dense collection of commercial buildings would be razed, replaced for years by surface parking lots.

A contemporary shot of the exquisite details of the entrance, sadly damaged by a shoddy paint-over of the former "Federal Building" lettering.

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My book, A Brief History of Phoenix, is available to buy or order at your local independent bookstore, or from Amazon.

Read more Phoenix history in Rogue's Phoenix 101 archive.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comments

[Mike Doughty]

The pic of Phoenix is how I remember Phoenix when I got here in 1966. I vividly remember driving my father-in-laws 1955 Chevy up central to Thomas and bobs big boy. Lots of landscaping and palm trees that have since been pulled out to cater to our car fetish. I often wonder if we knew then what we know now about co2 if we wouldn’t gladly take the car.

[Donna Reiner]

The murals definitely have survived and are still in place. The City of Phoenix owns the building and it is my understanding that one of the easements requires that it always be a postoffice. I would check on that though. I object to the "marking of the dog" behavior with the ASU sign on all the sides. UGH!

[K Hamblin]

I drive by the Post Office and Westward Ho every day coming home from the downtown Y. Glad both buildings are still around, but both need some love...

[Jon7190]

Nice article. I always liked that building a lot. I agree it would be nice if the main post office was downtown and the historic building was more than a customer service desk. I suppose the way the PO works nowadays they want a main location with lots of parking lot space for route trucks and employees.

I wonder if any city has a main post office downtown built in the last 20 years that could be considered an architectural showpiece in the mold of the old Phoenix one.

Judging by the cars in the Salad Bowl picture, I'd say that was probably the Jan 2, 1950 game. I'm guessing the parade was on New Years Day. The Buick woody wagon in the foreground (beautiful!) is a 1950 model and I couldn't see anything else that looked newer. It could be 51 or 52, but I would bet 50.

[Mark in Scottsdale]

I really like post office buildings because there are so many of them extant that I find many of them across the country exist for every epoch, in all manner of shapes and sizes.

I find myself in the historic downtown post office once or twice a year and it seems to be staying busy. I don't really understand what ASU does with the building but at least I can still go there and purchase USPS services.

[Cal Lash]

Some tough Front Page stories!
Some that should be frightening the planets inhabits.
The sad one, the LA story, and the one i see every time i drive inner Phoenix is,
"infrastructure."