The St. Paul Post Office

Recently, I had the opportunity to walk the floors of the downtown St. Paul Post Office, a place I had worked for over ten years before starting my current career choice.  I still keep in touch with one of my postal buddies and great friend, Ken, and he still works there in a capacity that allowed me to get a visitor's badge and access to all floors of the nearly abandoned building.  This building was built in 1934 and served as the Post Office until moving everything to the new main facility in Eagan over a year ago.  According to Ken, the building is for sale and is going to be completely shut down and locked down starting in February, thus making it impossible for me to get in again.  It was a great opportunity for me to get some pictures of the place where I spent so much time.

My first stop was the 2nd floor, Mailing Division, where I first began my Postal career.  Of course, all of the sorting machines and letter cases have been removed, so the workroom floors are all pretty wide open.  In one corner, there were several carts we used to move boxes of mail from area to area.  It was a very strange feeling being back here again, with everything completely quiet.  These areas used to be filled with hundreds of letter cases, letter sorting machines, postage canceling machines, and the hustle and bustle of hundreds of people sorting mail.

In the photo below, you can see the enclosed "alleys" suspended from the ceiling, used by postal inspectors to conduct surveillance on the clerks as they worked.  We never knew if and when they were up there, where they would watch through the view ports with reflective glass.  These "alleys" allowed the inspectors to view every area of the work floor and lunch rooms, and they could move from floor to floor without being observed.  You can see these view ports in nearly all of the following photos.

In the photo below, imagine rows and rows of letter cases extending to the other end of the photo.

The photo below shows what used to be the Mailing Division swing room, where I ate many, many of my lunches while working 9:30 pm to 6:00 am.  The ceiling here is about 6'5" high.  And yes, the view ports are here too.

When I worked here 20 years ago, everything was painted a pale green.  There were none of these happy colors...

One of the many postal inspector view ports.

A row of old sinks.  

While many of the bathrooms had been updated since I worked there nearly 20 years ago, I found one bathroom that still had solid wood stall doors.  These doors are mounted to a stone or marble-like frame.  

The old style urinals with foot pedal flushers.  You don't see these every day.

An old postal scale from 1953.

Most areas had limited lighting.  On the workroom floors, I was able to use what few lights there were plus the light coming in the windows.  The photo below was taken in the sub-basement which is actually below the waterline of the Mississippi River.

A special Thanks to my friend Ken for piloting the Way-Back Machine and making my trip down memory lane possible!

Back Alley St. Paul

One cool morning in September, I got up early and wandered around downtown St. Paul.  I found myself exploring alleys, of all places.  Here are a few photos I found interesting.  I hope you enjoy them.

Doors are cool, and this one caught my eye.

At the far end of this alley, something caught my eye.  It's a....

...Piano.

Directly behind me in this shot there was what appeared to be somebody's sleeping quarters for the previous night.  That small corner of pavement also doubled as their toilet and eating area...

I've said it before...  Doors are cool.

Thanks for looking!

September Photos

Recently, I brought my camera gear along on a motorcycle ride.  Along the way I found a few stops I considered to be photo-worthy.  The first few pics were taken in Welch MN.  I hope you enjoy the pics.

1958 Chevy - Pauly, this one's for you.

Corn - Lots and lots of corn.  And sky.  And clouds.  And...  some more corn.

This was taken in Hammond MN, a small town along the Zumbro River just north of Rochester.  Several homes in this area were flooded a couple years ago and remain vacant and condemned.  This particular home had a strange feel to it, and I've tried to reflect that feeling in my shot.  As my good friend Steve T. says, "I was here, and it felt like this." I couldn't help but think about the folks who used to live here and the good times they probably had in their home.

The garage behind that home.

Barn located east of Plum City WI

Gratuitous shot of my bike parked in front of the abandoned 1854 Hotel Denniston House in Cassville WI.  I found this during a recent 630 mile motorcycle ride that proved to me once again that I am a very poor estimator as to when I will be home from a ride.

Pollen-harvesting bee at the sunflower in my yard.

Thanks for visiting my photo blog!

March Variety

It has been a few months since my last post so I thought now is as good a time as any to get a few more pics out there.  As you can see, there isn't much of a theme to these pictures, just a collection of this-and-that.  The first couple were taken along the Vermillion River in Hastings, and they were processed using some trial software I ran into.  Each of the first two photos started as 3 photos that were merged into one.  The process is called HDR or High Dynamic Range. 

These next two photos were also processed using HDR and were taken in Hastings as well.

This was taken at the Minneapolis Photo Center where I recently took an HDR class.

On March 3rd, I watched some guys I work with play a hockey tournament benefiting cystic fibrosis.  They played 3 games that day.  Just the thought of it makes my legs sore.

Sunset and a planet.

Night Play

Recently, I bought a new 35mm lens.  The majority of these photos were taken with that lens, which is a very "fast" lens, meaning it collects light very well at wide-open apertures and allows me to more easily take nighttime photos without using a tripod.  With the exception of the 2nd and 3rd photos from the end, all of these were hand held.  I hope you enjoy them.

Kellogg Park downtown St. Paul

Trying to take it all in with her camera phone.

Evening Stroll

Photographing the Wedding Photographer

Lens Change

5th and Wabasha

Landmark Center

Minnesota Peace Officer's Memorial

The Thin Blue Line

State Capitol with tip of dome under construction.

St. Paul skyline.

Facing North from Cherokee Park

Gelly's Pub in Stockholm Wisconsin

On the same October evening I shot Gelly's Pub, we parked the motorcycles and took this picture of the remnants of the sunset and the Big Dipper over Lake Pepin.  This shot is facing northwest towards Old Frontenac.

Thanks for looking!