The Old Post Office, also known as U.S. Post Office, is a historic post office building located at 121 Ellicott Street in Buffalo in Erie County, New York. It was the tallest building in the city from 1901 to 1912. It was designed by the Office of the Supervising Architect during the tenure of Jeremiah O'Rourke when construction started in 1897. The $1,500,000 building opened in 1901 during the tenure of James Knox Taylor and operated as Buffalo's central post office until 1963. The highly ornamented Gothic Revival style four story building features a 244 foot tower over the central entrance. The main feature of the interior is a roofed courtyard. It was subsequently occupied by federal offices. Since 1981, it has been home to the city campus of Erie Community College.
A post office is a customer service facility forming part of a national postal system. Post offices offer mail-related services such as acceptance of letters and parcels; provision of post office boxes; and sale of postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. In addition, many post offices offer additional services: providing and accepting government forms (such as passport applications), processing government services and fees (such as road tax), and banking services (such as savings accounts and money orders). The chief administrator of a post office is a postmaster.
Prior to the advent of postal and ZIP codes, postal systems would route items to a specific post office for receipt or delivery. In 19th-century America, this often led to smaller communities being renamed after their post offices, particularly after the Post Office Department ceased to permit duplicate station names within a state.
Name
The term "post office" or "post-office" has been in use since the 1650s, shortly after the legalisation of private mail service in England in 1635. In early Modern England, post riders–mounted couriers– were placed ("posted") every few hours along post roads at "postinghouses" or "posthouses" between major cities ("post towns"). These stables or inns permitted important correspondence to travel without delay. In early America, post offices were also known as "stations". This term and "post house" fell from use as horse and coach service was replaced by railways, aircraft, and automobiles.
Post Office is the first novel written by Charles Bukowski, published in 1971 when he was 50 years old.
Plot
Down-and-out barfly Henry Chinaski becomes a substitute mail carrier; he quits for a while and lives on his winnings at the track, then becomes a mail clerk. Chinaski drifts from place to place, surviving through booze and women, with his biting sense of humor and a cynical view of the world.
Writing and publication
An autobiographical account of Bukowski's years working as a carrier and sorter for the United States Postal Service, the novel is "dedicated to nobody". Post Office introduces Bukowski's autobiographical anti-hero, Henry Chinaski. It covers the period of Bukowski's life from about 1952 to his resignation from the United States Postal Service three years later, to his return in 1958 and then to his final resignation in 1969. During this time, Chinaski/Bukowski worked as a mail carrier for a number of years. After a brief hiatus, in which he supported himself by gambling at horse races, he returned to the post office to work as a sorter.
Post Office branches, along with the Royal Mail delivery service, were formerly part of the General Post Office and later the Post Office corporation. Post Office Counters Ltd was created as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Post Office corporation in 1986. After the Post Office corporation was renamed Royal Mail Group in 2001, Post Office Counters Ltd became Post Office Ltd.
Post Office Ltd has in recent years announced losses; a reported £102 million in 2006. This has raised many concerns in the media regarding Post Office Ltd's ability as a company to operate efficiently. Plans to cut the £150m-a-year subsidy for rural post offices led to the announcement that 2,500 local post offices were to be closed. This announcement resulted in a backlash from local communities that relied on the service.
A committee was formed, which finally decided to build the post office where the old bank in town burned down during the Great Fire, as it was never rebuilt — this would allow the post office to also be located on a corner lot.
Well, that old groundhog saw his shadow, Sunday, ...Remember when the arrival of seed catalogs and the chirping of newly-shippedin baby chicks at the PostOffice would herald the arrival of Spring.
The Aroostook County man who was killed by police late Monday following an hours-long standoff — in which he allegedly shot an officer and a police dog while holding his 4-week-old child captive — ...
A woman from Chamanganj area of the city was arrested while trying to steal a 40-day-old infant from main post office at Bada Chauraha, on Monday ...Later, she went to the main post office to update her Aadhaar card.
NORTH CANTON ‒ A new Dairy Queen restaurant is expected to open by June on the site of the former post office, which has been demolished ...The business began demolishing the more-than-52-year-old post office building on Jan.
A nearby settlement would house the area’s earliest post office. The post office was an essential source of public news in the 19th century...County’s first post office and trading post.
One day as she helped her elderly landlady carry a heavy parcel to the post office, the old woman stopped and pointed at a wall, telling the young Han that this was where many of the islanders had been executed.
In the heart of the cobb led Old Town, the Telegraaf is in a former bank and post office, with designer rooms and a restaurant serving traditional Estonian/Russian dishes.
"We will not rest until the criminals who killed 7-year-old Breon Allen on Friday, January 24, are behind bars," the Sheriff's Office posted on its Facebook Thursday ...The Sheriff's Office said it happened about 5 p.m.
Ferguson was slightly late for this interview after being summoned to a post-training meeting with Roberto De Zerbi in the manager’s office. The 44-year-old Italian adores Ferguson, previously predicting he can become ‘the top scorer in Europe’.
The brutal murder of Uyinene Mrwetyana in 2019, a 19-year-old University of Cape Town first-year student, who was raped and bludgeoned to death in a post office, sparked nationwide outrage and brought into sharper focus the depths of the crisis.