Berkeley’s Main Post Office to close

Photo: Daniella Thompson

Berkeley’s Main Post Office at 2000 Allston Way will be closed and put up for sale in four months. The elegant building, designed by Oscar Wenderoth and completed in 1915, was modeled on Filippo Brunelleschi’s Italian Renaissance masterpiece, the Ospedale degli Innocenti (1419–1424) in the Piazza della Santissima Annunziata, Florence.

The post office features two New Deal works of art: the mural “Incidents in California History” by Suzanne Scheuer and the bas-relief “Post Office Activities” by David Slivka.

The building is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. It is an important component of the Civic Center Historic District, which is now threatened on several fronts, with the uncertain future of Old City Hall and Veterans Memorial Building, both badly in need of seismic retrofitting.