Added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 11, 1985

In their trusty A Guide to Architecture in Los Angeles & Southern California, architecture writers Robert Gebhard and Robert Winter describe the Glendale Main Post Office as “Italian Renaissance with good interior.” Fawning this description is not; there’s nothing too exciting about a branch of the US Postal Service looking like – surprise! – something built by the federal government. In 1934, when the George M. Lindsay-designed structure was completed, Italian Renaissance design was pretty outmoded, even by federal standards. Situated across the street from the strikingly modern First United Methodist Church of Glendale, and just down Broadway from the levitating brutalist palace that is the Glendale Civic Center’s Municipal Services Building, a pretty nice example of an old-world style is gonna have a hard time standing out. 

In fact the site’s NRHP nomination form points to the very fact of its late-in-the-game design as being one of the reasons it’s historically important:

“The Renaissance Revival detailing places the structure in opposition to the prevailing architectural taste of the Thirties, and is important as an example of the federal government’s and Glendale’s design conservatism. The building is locally important as the only surviving monumental Renaissance Revival building. The structure relates more to the post offices of the Twenties and Teens than of the Thirties…”

Doug Robertson, Planner, Beland/Associates, Inc. – from NRHP nomination form

To be fair, post offices don’t have to project the same ideals as churches and building safety departments. In a 1988 article for the LA Times, Doug Smith praises this post office as “a powerful symbol of grace and stability” – surely two virtues you’d appreciate in an institution charged with sending your stuff from here to there in a timely fashion. I’ll take guaranteed two-day delivery over clever post office design any day. 

Certainly this building feels solid. The terracotta brick exterior looks like it’s been there for 500 years and it’ll still be standing another 500 from now. The symmetrical massing, the brass doors and service window grates, the marble interior, even the stone lion heads mounted above the front entrance – they all suggest “You can trust me with your grandma’s birthday gift.” 

The Glendale Post Office has survived rounds of consolidations over the years. By the late 1980s, it even housed a small museum of artifacts from several of the smaller branches that it absorbed. In 2013, the USPS proposed closing Glendale Main as part of a long-term strategy to stay solvent as they lost business to Amazon and other delivery alternatives. They argued that much of the space in the 56,000-square foot building was unused or underused at the time.

The USPS’s plan was met with plenty of opposition from the Glendale City Council, from the Glendale Historical Society…even Congressperson Adam Schiff sent a strongly-worded missive to USPS Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe, in support of keeping the Glendale Main Post Office a post office. Fortunately the local history (and mail!) buffs prevailed, and by 2014 Glendale Main had actually expanded its services, taking over passport processing duties for about a dozen LA communities. 

To get your passport these days, you enter through the above door…the same one that once housed the small postal history museum.

Recommended Reading

+Glendale Post Office’s NRHP nomination form

+Downtown Glendale post office is a powerful symbol of grace and stability (LA Times, 1988)

+Rep. Schiff Calls on U.S. Postal Service to Keep Historic Glendale Post Office Open (2013)