Make the Post Office a Bar

Dear Beachhead:

I have to say that I won’t be sad to see that post office go, for several reasons: (1) It’s ugly in there. There’s string hanging from the louvers, crap laying around the counters, and the whole space feels impersonal and bureaucratic. (2) I hate the plexiglass. If we keep the present P.O., we keep the plexi. Makes it like East Germany in there. If we change the post office, maybe the new one can come without that stuff. (3) The help is less than helpful. Let’s just say that they are of widely varying intelligence levels. (4) The mural is historic, but it’s also very weird.

It’s one of the weirdest in the entire Post Office Mural Program (and I know because I am an art historian and I have studied this). Abbot Kinney rising out the doorway, photographically accurate which does him no favors, while the rest of the mural is more loosely painted. Hoo Boy. So I think the Postal Service should sell the building. Let it become a bar or something. And let’s try to make a new post office that we can be a little prouder of.

Patrick Frank
Crescent Place