Post Office Was Just A Rental

This week I went to the United States Postal Service post office located at 1211 Towanda Ave, Bloomington, IL 61701, which is the same post office I have gone to for the past decade and more; only to find it closed, with a hand-written note taped to the door directing customers to the post office located around the block at 1511 E Empire St, Bloomington, IL 61701. I schlepped my mail on over there to post it, and to see what was going on.

In 2007 when I bought my house in this neighborhood I had asked at the post office why there were two very large postal facilities within a few blocks of each other, and I was told to mind my own business. I persisted in asking Why? and was rudely told that the post office on Towanda was for customers and the post office around the block from it on Empire was a "sorting" facility which did not cater to customers. The postal workers did not throw stones to drive me away, but they seemed to want to do so. Now I understand why. This time when I asked one of them let slip that, "The post office on Towanda was just a rental." Obviously the relatively small, twin towns of Bloomington-Normal, Illinois have no need of two big post offices (and there are several additional smaller ones at various other locations), some local fat cat was getting regular saucers of cream from renting out the building on Towanda to the United States Postal Service, my tax dollars and yours stolen yet again and again and again. Wonder what political pressures were brought to bear on these two crooked little towns to straighten them out?