Main Post Office

With traffic slowed to a crawl, the masts of television news vans raised skyward out front and music blaring from radio station disc jockeys across the street, it seemed like the opening of a hot dance club or even a Hollywood premiere. But the site of yesterday evening's gala was the 900 block of E. Fayette St. - in and around Baltimore's main post office - and if the affair had to be named, it might have been called The Procrastinators' Ball. It happens just about every April 15 - or, when that date falls on a weekend, the Monday after - with the deadline to file income tax returns.

John E. Lafferty Jr., a retired U.S. Postal Service manager, died of Parkinson's disease and infection Saturday at Glen Meadows Retirement Community in Glen Arm. He was 90. Born in Baltimore and raised on Preston Street, he was a 1931 graduate of Calvert Hall College High School and attended Loyola College, where he majored in chemical engineering. Mr. Lafferty was forced to drop out of college because of the Great Depression and joined the Postal Service in 1933. As a railroad postal clerk, he traveled between Washington and New York sorting mail and tossing mailbags onto railroad platforms as the train moved slowly through towns.

Inside the cavernous Baltimore post office downtown, James A. Nemec watched as a stream of letters flew by like Indy cars through a noisy sorting machine. "I feel really confident," said Nemec, who is acting postmaster. "If the mail is inducted into this plant, it is going to be delivered." Neither he nor any other postal employee in Baltimore would have dared been so bold a few years ago. In 1994, Baltimore's mail service was ranked by PricewaterhouseCoopers as the worst in the country.

With traffic slowed to a crawl, the masts of television news vans raised skyward out front and music blaring from radio station disc jockeys across the street, it seemed like the opening of a hot dance club or even a Hollywood premiere. But the site of yesterday evening's gala was the 900 block of E. Fayette St. - in and around Baltimore's main post office - and if the affair had to be named, it might have been called The Procrastinators' Ball. It happens just about every April 15 - or, when that date falls on a weekend, the Monday after - with the deadline to file income tax returns.

Memo to Uncle Sam: There's no point in giving procrastinators an extra day to file their taxes. Hundreds of thousands of Marylanders waited until yesterday to mail their tax returns, enduring chilly, damp weather and lines at post offices to beat the midnight filing deadline. Last night at the main post office, at 900 E. Fayette St. in downtown Baltimore, 20 people were in line about 11:30 p.m., waiting to get help from 10 IRS agents and Maryland state auditors. It didn't seem to matter that taxpayers had an extra day to finish because the traditional April 15 due date fell on a Sunday.

U.S. Postal Service customers rushing to branch offices yesterday to mail letters before a New Year's Day rate increase were angered to discover they had closed early -- the doors locked and workers sent home at noon for the holiday eve.Patricia Atkins of Roland Park said she went to the Hampden post office on West 34th Street at 1:08 p.m. yesterday -- 22 minutes before the usual Saturday closing time -- only to find a handwritten note saying the office had...

John E. Lafferty Jr., a retired U.S. Postal Service manager, died of Parkinson's disease and infection Saturday at Glen Meadows Retirement Community in Glen Arm. He was 90. Born in Baltimore and raised on Preston Street, he was a 1931 graduate of Calvert Hall College High School and attended Loyola College, where he majored in chemical engineering. Mr. Lafferty was forced to drop out of college because of the Great Depression and joined the Postal Service in 1933. As a railroad postal clerk, he traveled between Washington and New York sorting mail and tossing mailbags onto railroad platforms as the train moved slowly through towns.

As sure as there's death and taxes, there's surely bound to be people who file their tax returns at the last minute.That was the case again last night as late filers jammed the main post office on East Fayette Street trying to beat the midnight deadline. A traffic jam was caused by those who drove up in cars to drop their state and federal returns into 16 plastic containers manned by postmen on the street outside."I think it's a mess," said Joseph Wiggins, 28, who filed his taxes in February and went to the post office last night to buy an envelope.

I heard a fancy explanation describing the succession of events I recently witnessed. I was about to leave Baltimore and make that 114-mile Saturday morning pilgrimage that gives us locals a case of the shakes - crossing the Bay Bridge and spending a night or two along the Atlantic Ocean. In short, it was a basic weekend getaway. Then, as the experts define it, separation anxiety descended like a stubborn Bermuda High. It's a state similar to the travel paralysis novelist Anne Tyler keenly observed in her delightful and dead-on accurate book The Accidental Tourist.

The mood at the main post office on East Fayette Street as the hours of April 15 ticked away last night was anything but anxious, with a palpable sense of relief at getting that tax return in the mail.Postal workers, some of whom dressed up for the occasion, said they frequently see the same faces year after year in the last hours of April 15."It's just like a procrastinator's reunion," said window clerk Acquinetta Walker, 46, decked out in a red, white and blue sequined vest. "When they see the postmark, they exhale."

I heard a fancy explanation describing the succession of events I recently witnessed. I was about to leave Baltimore and make that 114-mile Saturday morning pilgrimage that gives us locals a case of the shakes - crossing the Bay Bridge and spending a night or two along the Atlantic Ocean. In short, it was a basic weekend getaway. Then, as the experts define it, separation anxiety descended like a stubborn Bermuda High. It's a state similar to the travel paralysis novelist Anne Tyler keenly observed in her delightful and dead-on accurate book The Accidental Tourist.

Memo to Uncle Sam: There's no point in giving procrastinators an extra day to file their taxes. Hundreds of thousands of Marylanders waited until yesterday to mail their tax returns, enduring chilly, damp weather and lines at post offices to beat the midnight filing deadline. Last night at the main post office, at 900 E. Fayette St. in downtown Baltimore, 20 people were in line about 11:30 p.m., waiting to get help from 10 IRS agents and Maryland state auditors. It didn't seem to matter that taxpayers had an extra day to finish because the traditional April 15 due date fell on a Sunday.

Inside the cavernous Baltimore post office downtown, James A. Nemec watched as a stream of letters flew by like Indy cars through a noisy sorting machine. "I feel really confident," said Nemec, who is acting postmaster. "If the mail is inducted into this plant, it is going to be delivered." Neither he nor any other postal employee in Baltimore would have dared been so bold a few years ago. In 1994, Baltimore's mail service was ranked by PricewaterhouseCoopers as the worst in the country.

WE TAKE a lot of things for granted. One of them is the delivery of mail. I took a tour recently of the main post office and observed a modern marvel -- the sorting and distribution of mail. The reason I mention this is because it made me think of the program in place at North Glen Elementary School. The North Glen Post Office, as it is called, is an in-house operation conducted by Mary Jo Young, a reading specialist. Eleven pupils in grades five and six have jobs just like those of U.S. Postal Service employees.

Seeking to build on newly reconstructed public housing in East Baltimore and other improvements, Baltimore's economic development agency wants to create a downtown business park to attract companies that can provide jobs for city residents.Baltimore Development Corp. intends to spend up to $3.5 million in voter-approved economic development bond funds to purchase up to 71 properties along a four-block stretch of the Fayette Street corridor, across the street from the main post office.The agency wants to raze the buildings, many of which are underused and derelict, consolidate the lots into three to five development parcels, and offer the properties to businesses willing to move to the area.

The county's library system is the first government agency to express interest in the soon-to-be-vacant Westminster post office building, but the county commissioners may not be willing to finance the purchase.The U.S. Postal Service is offering the historic building at 83 E. Main St. to federal, state, county and Westminster governments.The law governing disposal of federal property gives government agencies first crack at buying surplus buildings. If none submits a bid, the Postal Service will sell the building on the open market.

The mood at the main post office on East Fayette Street as the hours of April 15 ticked away last night was anything but anxious, with a palpable sense of relief at getting that tax return in the mail.Postal workers, some of whom dressed up for the occasion, said they frequently see the same faces year after year in the last hours of April 15."It's just like a procrastinator's reunion," said window clerk Acquinetta Walker, 46, decked out in a red, white and blue sequined vest. "When they see the postmark, they exhale."