Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-07-10
A POST OFFICE ANNEX
Present Building Not Stuff
Gent for the Work.
ESTIMATES TO BE MADE
MANY DIVISIONS ARE NOW IN
RENTED BUILDINGS
Statements Made by the Postmaster
General and the First Assistant-A
Committee Continued.

A building occupied LEGS than three years
| already outgrown; an annual rental of over
| $4,000 fer outside quarters; five divisions
OF his department temporarily established
| In buildings apart from the executive offices
of the department, and in many cases sep
arated from their division superint endents;
approximately ore-haf of the regular de-
partment quarters apportioned to other
uses; a constant growth in the work of the
Nentire department and corresponding in
crease in the number of clerks, and an I'M
precedented enlargement of one particular
bureau-tbese are the conditions which now
confront Postmaster General Payne and
compel him to plan for the construction of
new building for post office uses.
To this end he has continued in existence
a commission of postal employees recently
established to rent additional office space
with instructions to estimate the cost of
building an annex south of the present
post office building. Tomorrow he will leave
Washington to be gone several weeks, and
his plan is that this commission shall COM
p!ete its nvestigation in the meantime By
the time Congress conyeneS next winter,
therefore, the Postmaster General will have
prepared suitable recomme nda lions for the
DEVIATION of many difficulties which now
obstruct the work Of his department.
Crowded for Working Space.
Practically from the day when the Post
Office Department moved to its present
offices at 18th street and Pennsylvania
avenue, in September, 1899 the several di-
visions of that department have been
crowded for working space. This was due
primarily to the legislative reservation of
Sufhclent office room to accommodate the
sixth auditors office, an enactment which
deprived the Post Office Department of two
and one-half floors out of eight, and of the
entire ground floor of the building for the
use of the Washington city post Office. The
department was accordingly given at the
outset only four and one half floors. or very
little more space than it had in the old
building without the annex, in which The
civil service commission is now quartered.
1t was thus impossible. even when the
new quarters were opened, for the depart
ment to consolidate all its divisions under
one roof The division of post office sup
plies continued in the rink building, on E
street between 9th and 18th streets north
west. The railway mail service occupied
part of the Atlantic Coast Line building
at 9th street and Pennsylvania avenue
northwest The mail bag repair shops con-
tinued at their old building, on street
northwest between Az and 9th streets
Mr.. Charles Emory Smith. who was Post
master General when the remove was
made, was accordingly compelled to con-
tinue paying the following sums for rental
of outside buildings: Rink building, &c, 40
square feet of floor space. 81 900 per year;
Atlantic Coast Line building. 2,37O square
feet of floor space, $2.1U0 per year; mail
bag repair shop building. 34.273 square
feet of floor space, $JO96 per year.
Such situation was very diStasteful to
the then Postmaster General. That his
office should move into a new building spe-
ciaIly designed to accommodate all its needs
and should at the very outset demand over
$1,000 annually for the rental of outside
buildings seemed to him most unbusiness-
like. But the appropriate for the post
Office building provided explicitly that the
offices of the auditor for the Post Office
Department and of the Washington city
post office should be located in that struc-
ture. If, therefore, there should be INSULT
cient space it was the Post Office Depart
ment which suffered.