Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 92, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 April 1910 — WORLD'S BIGGEST POSTOFFICE. [ARTICLE]

WORLD'S BIGGEST POSTOFFICE.

London’s Establishment Covers 17 Acres and Is Up to Date. In another week the splendid new building, which is to make the London general postofflee not only the largest but also the most modern and up-to-date in the world, is to be opened, a dispatch to the Pittsburg GazetteTimes says. The whole ground floor i 3 to be -open to the public for the transaction of any kind of business, while on the second floor will be magnificent private offices for the higher postal officials. Immediately behind this block is a covered yard giving access to a platform, at which the mail carts will draw up. After discharging the carts will make their way to another platform, where the outgoing mails will be loaded. There will be greater expedition in transacting business, as. owing to the circuitous route which carts have now to take, there being no straight processional way from discharging platform to loading platform, much time is wasted. At the rear of the covered yard is a huge building covering one and a half acres—all clear floor space, with _the exception of the supporting coludms, which are sixty feet apart. Hem the sorters are to come, and at nighl? time the spectacle will be witnessed of nearly 3,000 sorters being engaged at ena time on this one undivided level. The only furniture will be the usual sorting fittings. On this ground floor the London letters mostly will be dealt with, and on the first floor foreign and dolonihl mails will be sorted. Plenty of room has been left for additional postofflee business. The third floor will be used by the staff for cooking their meals. The kitchens have been fitted up on the most up-to-date principles, a steam boiling apparatus has been installed along with gas cooking stoves. Each man will have his own private locker. These three floors exhaust the accommodation of this rearmost building. The front block, to be used by the controller of the London postal service, has four floors. The three-story building has a fine flat roof, from which a splendid view of London, Including St. Paul’s may be obtained. It has occurred to the authorities that it would make an admirable roof garden, but it is not likely it will ever be applied to this purpose. Among the improvements that will help to facilitate business are nine or ten electric elevators, which will save time as compared with the hydraulic elevator now in use. London may now claim to have the largest postoffice in the world, not so grand as regards frontage as the Washington building, but very much larger, more than seventeen acres being under cover.