US Post Office-Long Beach Main
Encyclopedia
US Post Office-Long Beach Main, also known as Long Beach Main Post Office, is a registered historic building located on Long Beach Boulevard in downtown Long Beach, California
Long Beach, California
Long Beach is a city situated in Los Angeles County in Southern California, on the Pacific coast of the United States. The city is the 36th-largest city in the nation and the seventh-largest in California. As of 2010, its population was 462,257...

. The Art Deco
Art Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...

 WPA Moderne building opened in 1934 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

 due to its architectural significance in 1985. It remains in operation as a post office.

Description

The structure was built from 1933 to 1934 as a project of the New Deal
New Deal
The New Deal was a series of economic programs implemented in the United States between 1933 and 1936. They were passed by the U.S. Congress during the first term of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The programs were Roosevelt's responses to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call...

's Works Progress Administration
Works Progress Administration
The Works Progress Administration was the largest and most ambitious New Deal agency, employing millions of unskilled workers to carry out public works projects, including the construction of public buildings and roads, and operated large arts, drama, media, and literacy projects...

. It is built out of large masonry blocks with terra cotta sheathing. The structure's most prominent feature is the central tower rising four-and-a-half stories from the street level. The building's design has been credited to Louis A. Simon
Louis A. Simon
Louis A. Simon was an American architect.Simon was educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Following a tour of Europe, he opened an architectural office in Baltimore, Maryland in 1894....

 and James A. Wetmore
James A. Wetmore
James A. Wetmore was an American lawyer and administrator, best known as the Acting Supervising Architect of the U.S. Office of the Supervising Architect from 1915 through 1933. Wetmore is frequently and incorrectly described as the "architect" of the many federal buildings that bear his...

. From 1933 to 1939, Simon was the head of the Office of the Supervising Architect
Office of the Supervising Architect
The Office of the Supervising Architect was an agency of the United States Treasury Department that designed federal government buildings from 1852 to 1939....

, an agency of the United States Treasury Department that designed federal government buildings. Wetmore preceded Simon as the head of the Office of the Supervising Architect from 1915 through 1933; his name appears on some 2,000 cornerstones of federal buildings.

The building's architectural style has been described as "Starved Classicism" and "WPA Moderne
Art Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...

". One writer has referred to the building as "Post-Quake Moderne," due to the fact that the Moderne style of Art Deco
Art Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...

 architecture was prevalent as Long Beach was rebuilt after the Long Beach earthquake of 1933. In their book, "An architectural guidebook to Los Angeles," architectural historians David Gebhard and Robert Winter described the Long Beach Main Post Office as "PWA Moderne, accomplished with restrained and sophisticated taste."

History

The proposal for the new main post office building was officially accepted in March 1931, and the groundbreaking took place one year later in March 1932. Construction was underway when the 1933 Long Beach earthquake struck the city. Construction was halted briefly, but work resumed a week later after a survey by contractors showed little damage. The scaffolding was removed from the structure at the end of July 1934, and 5,000 persons attended the opening ceremony in September 1934. The structure has been in continuous operation as a post office since 1934.

See also

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