Post office relocation met with resistance

The USPS first informed employees and Princeton Borough that it was considering selling the building in September 2011. According to Postal Service regional spokesman Ray Daiutolo, Sr., USPS is currently working with the HPO to determine appropriate measures for the sale.

The move should not affect the current flow of student mail. According to Director of Print and Mail Services Deborah Berlo, all University mail is received at the Carnegie Center Post Office about two miles from campus. The mail is then sorted by University Mail Services into Frist mailboxes.

The USPS has occupied the Palmer Square building since 1934. However, in the age of email and text messaging, the USPS has struggled to maintain its nationwide operations. Measures to cut costs and increase efficiency have resulted in the closing of hundreds of offices and the reduction of both workforce and hours of operation.

“Our plan is to sell the building and relocate the post office operation to a smaller site,” Daiutolo said in an email. According to Daiutolo, the 11,000-square-foot Palmer Square building is too large for the operation. Currently, the retail space of the USPS only requires up to 2,000 square feet.

While the USPS sees the move as a matter of economizing, to other invested parties, the Palmer Square location represents an entire career. Post office clerk Ron Clark has worked in the post office for 40 years and likened the sale to “selling your grandmother.”

“The talk is about space, and I haven’t heard anything about cost,” Clark said. Whereas USPS would have to pay rent on a new location, it owns the Palmer Square building outright and does not pay taxes on the building. While a formal list price has not been released, the Princeton Borough tax office has assessed the building at $1.89 million.

Deputy State Historic Preservation Officer Daniel D. Saunders noted in a letter to the USPS that the proposed sale of the post office would have an “adverse effect” on the property. Princeton Borough has also lent its support to the state’s recommendation. Vice Chair of the HPRC Jeanne Perantoni said in an email that the HPRC wrote to USPS urging it to reconsider the sale and asking to be included as a consulting party if the USPS decided to make alternate plans.

In the last 80 years, the building has been a site for community members’ and students’ everyday errands as well as a focus of community culture and student protests.

Perantoni cited the building’s well-known 1939 mural “Columbia Under the Palm” and its location at the heart of downtown as important factors in the building’s “significant contributions” to the local history and atmosphere. The mural, a key historic part of the building, was commissioned as a public arts project during the New Deal and depicts an encounter between colonial settlers and Native Americans.

The subject matter of the mural has been a spark for protest in the past. According to the ‘Prince’ archives, in 1998, a graduate student led a yearlong letter-writing and public protest campaign claiming the mural had racist undertones. The campaign resulted in the installation of a second contemporary painting in the building.

Daiutolo said there have been a number of interested buyers thus far. The post office last considered a move in 1997, but negotiations with Palmer Square Management, which owns most of the buildings in Palmer Square, fell through.

If the sale had come into fruition, the Postal Service would have considered relocating to Nassau Street. Vice President of Palmer Square Management David Newton said he hopes the post office remains downtown, adding that whatever enterprise replaces the office should “complement all the existing stores in Palmer Square.”

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Diautolo said that the property would be formally listed on the United States Postal Service Properties for Sale webpage once the sale of the building has been finalized.