Ever since news broke that the U.S. Postal Service had plans to sell Berkeley’s main post office on Allston Way, city and state officials, community activists, and preservationists have been trying to stop the sale. They contend the historic structure was built with public funds and should stay in the public domain, that the historic murals inside need to be available to all, and that the post office’s “financial crisis” is contrived. In an Opinionator piece published today, Rachel Force, an architectural historian and former planner for San Francisco, urges city officials to stop fighting a “losing battle” and to work to identify a new use for the building and search for funding sources.
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