I went to retrieve a package at the Hollywood Post Office at 1615 Wilcox Avenue. It is a historic monument, built in the 1930’s, with elegant art deco carvings and a dignified facade.
As one steps through the trash surrounding the building, and the homeless sleeping along the curb, one enters a dark and dingy hall plastered with cheap posters. The once sparkling hall is crowded with vending machines and hand written signs hung up with yellowing tape.
Though there are “automated” machines, a woman is still needed to direct people where to go. Through the last 70 years, the room has been so altered that even the mailboxes are hidden. One thing about space and time saving automation: it doesn’t work, either in the do-it-yourself check-out at Home Depot or when purchasing stamps at the P.O.
I was directed to the “will call” window where I presented my card to a woman. She checked my I.D. and went in back to get the package. Another woman opened a second window, and the first woman handed my parcel to the second woman who asked again to see my I.D.
In the 1930’s, during the depths of the Great Depression, there were California insane asylums and Federal US Post Offices. The state asylums cared for and treated mentally ill people. The US Post Offices were clean, efficient and dignified: a great symbol of The United States of America. Now the two have merged into the Hollywood Post Office: dirty, confused, dangerous and barely functioning.
Here in Van Nuys 