USPS Building Bridges Special Postal Cancellation Series | |
---|---|
Status | Active |
Genre | Postal cancellation events |
Country | United States |
Inaugurated | May 29, 1996 |
Founders |
|
Most recent | May 16, 2022 [1] |
Organized by |
|
Website | sanfrancisco |
The USPS Building Bridges Special Postal Cancellation Series is a series of cancellations and pictorial postmarks issued by the United States Postal Service for special events that began in the San Francisco Bay Area beginning in 1996, and expanded to the Pacific Coast of the United States in 2022. [2]
The first USPS Building Bridges Special Postal Cancellations was issued on May 29, 1996 [3] in partnership with Dan DiMiglio, the USPS Manager of the Pacific Area, Corporate relations, at a special ceremony unveiling the Breast cancer research stamp in Contra Costa County. 60 Representatives from non-profit organizations and coalitions were present in a special presentation with live music and government officials. This first USPS Building Bridges Special Cancellation was not unusual. It had been a pattern of Postmasters, as early as the World's Columbian Exposition 1893, for Postmasters to officiate over a special postal station located in an event important for the city. [4]
In 1996, two additional USPS Building Bridges Special Postal Cancellation Series were issued and Contra Costa County recognized the series in a Resolution declaring October 1996 "Building Bridges of Peace Month". [5] A Building Bridges postal Station was set up at the Health and Safety Fair Expo [6] and another at a live concert at the Dean Lesher Regional Center for the Arts. [7] The Mayor of Walnut Creek, Gwen Regalia, was sworn in as Postmaster for the day at the Contra Costa Newspapers Health and Safety Expo at Countrywood Plaza. [8] The Board of Supervisors for the Mount Diablo Unified School District passed a resolution declaring Oct 1996 as "Building Bridges of Peace Month" and children from the elementary schools drew art on the theme and created a "Wall of Life" across public spaces and bank lobbies. [9]
The Valley Yellow Pages devoted 50 pages and a front cover of its Contra Costa County Central Yellow Pages book to a Building Bridges Recognition Series, [10] recognizing the executive directors of over 50 different non-profit organizations [11] and government agencies in the county with the symbol and a description of the non-profit organizations program. [12]
The Building Bridges symbol was designed by Karen Earle Lile and Kendall Ross Bean. It was first used in a video broadcast produced by Lile for the City of Oakland's KTOP TV, a Government-access television station as a promotional piece for a one time festival proclaimed the "21 Days of Light" by Elihu Harris in a Mayor's Proclamation. [13] [14] in the City of Oakland from Jan 2–22, 1994. Over the years, other postmasters collaborated with the conceptual artist, [15] art director and designer, Lile, to create additional postal cancellations with the Building Bridges symbol and name on postal stations on land and on the water.
The first on-the-water theme of the USPS Building Bridges Special Postal Cancellation series was conducted on land, at the Berkeley Yacht Club, by the Berkeley Postmaster and Leonora Clark, the Commodore (rank) of the Pacific Inter-Club Yachting Organization, a retired United States Postal Service Postmaster, paired with the new release of the Global surface temperatures Forever Stamp. [16]
For the 100th Anniversary of the Opening Day on the San Francisco Bay in 2017, there were two Building Bridges postal stations: one in San Francisco and one in Oakland. On April 23, 2017, the San Francisco Station and the Postmaster were on the Californian of Hornblower Cruises, but the majority of the hand stamps were done at the dock of Pier 1 1/2 and for the 30 days after at the local post office. The Oakland Building Bridges Postal Station was done on the dock of Jack London Square where the ceremony was held, but the Oakland Postmaster Daryl Trujillo was aboard the Lady Washington . The Pacific Inter-Club Yachting Association (PICYA) helped commemorate the event, bringing 100 vessels consisting of yachts, power boats, ships and a fire boat.. The open and close of the celebration featured a Tall Ship Cannon Battle between the Lady Washington and the Hawaiian Chieftain . [17] [18] [19]
Two years later, on April 21, 2019, the cancellation took place two days after a cannon battle on Pier 39 at Sports Byline USA broadcast studio. The actual Postmaster Ceremony with San Francisco Postmaster Abraham Cooper was broadcast on the network's 10 platforms including 200 US satellite radio stations and the 500 radio stations of the American Forces Network to 168 countries. [20] It was broadcast to 82 million people in 168 Countries and on the American Forces Network by Sports Byline USA. [21] [22]
The Eureka cancellation was the first time the series moved up the Pacific Coast. [23]
The Lady Washington and Hawaiian Chieftain had planned a battle sail in Eureka as part of the celebration, [24] but the Lady Washington was delayed due to weather conditions on the coast and so the Hawaiian Chieftain ship itself became the Building Bridges Postal Station for the ceremony with Eureka's Mayor Susan Seaman receiving the first inked cancellation. [23] [25]
Fantasy Studios closed its doors September 15, 2018, [26] [27] as part of a trend of studio closings happening over a period of years. [28] News of the closing of Fantasy Studios went global and recording artists who had recorded there were in mourning at its loss on radio, TV [29] and in the newspapers. [30]
Lile, upon finishing the last music recording [31] at Fantasy Studios for a special KCSM (FM) Jazz [32] Benefit album featuring Kendall Ross Bean and 60 musicians, including Grammy Award Winners, designed a new theme of the USPS Building Bridges Special Postal Cancellation, recognizing all the recordings that had been preserved over the years in the city of Berkeley, California, and then later in the City of San Francisco. The Berkeley Cancellation had a typo and read 70 years, instead of 80 years. The oldest recording found to date in Berkeley was in 1938. [33]
USPS Building Bridges Special Postal Cancellation: Recognizing 70 years of Music Recording in Berkeley two months after Fantasy Studios closed. [34] [35]
Plans of a Cal Alumni Marching Band and audience as part of the celebrations were cancelled due to fires in the area., [36] but, the ceremony happened as planned inside the Main Berkeley Post Office and was recorded on film.
A Building Bridges Music Recording History Postal Station was established at SF Jazz for 4 hours where the public and collectors purchased specially-designed souvenir envelopes with the newly issued Gregory Hines stamp and a special pictorial postmark applied. San Francisco Postmaster Abraham Cooper gave a speech at the beginning of the concert, which was broadcast live simultaneously on the internet. [37] Cooper then hand cancelled the Hines stamp and pictorial postmark for presentation to SFJAZZ. [37]
The concert and ceremony was live-streamed. [38] The event was part of Black History Month. Members of the audience received the cache with the stamp and postmark as a gift from SFJAZZ Center [37]
The ceremony recognized San Francisco's abundant music recording history and abundance of talent back to 1938, when ethnomusicologist Sidney Robertson Cowell first recorded the folk songs of immigrants living in San Francisco. [37] Her recordings are now part of the Library of Congress collection.
In 2021, USPS announced that the theme of Building Bridges will continue to cities on both the west and east coast. [2] The first of the 2021 series happened on February 18, 2021, at the Treasure Island Museum commemorating the Opening day of the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939. It includes the Treasure Island Museum logo, the logo of The Bicentennial of the Independence of Peru and an illustration of Peru's Tall Ship BAP Unión. Because of the pandemic, only 12 people were allowed to be at the event including the filmmakers. So, the ceremony was filmed and then broadcast to the public on an event website in cooperation with all the public sector, private sector and community sector partners involved. Speakers included San Francisco Postmaster Abraham Cooper, Consul General of Peru in List of diplomatic missions of Peru, Hernando Torres-Fernandes, Treasure Island Museum President Mike Hennahane, Pacific Inter-Club Yacht Association Commodore Patti Mangan, Treasure Island Yacht Club Vice Commodore Will Smith and Karen Earle Lile. The ceremony began with a flag raising ceremony at Treasure Island Yacht Club and then continued at Treasure Island Museum with the speakers, continued with a ceremonial sail of the Consul General of Peru on the boat Sandpiper and two days later was concluded with a Pacific Rim Unity Parade of 51 sail and power boats around Treasure Island. Seven commemorative postal caches were created for receiving the postal cancellation [39]
From May 10, 2022, to May 16, 2022, 5 cancellations in 3 cities honored the 110th Anniversary of Glenn L. Martin’s flight from Balboa Pier to Newport Beach, the 1938 National Airmail Week celebrated across the nation and on Catalina Island with Glenn Martin present, and the progress of International Air Mail, at LAX airport, one of the largest centers for shipping International Airmail in the world. [1]
What each cancellation has in common is the Building Bridges symbol, a black hand clasping a white hand over the water, forming a bridge with a rainbow above. The rectangle to the right of the Building Bridges symbol names the event and later in the series began to feature pictorial postmark elements. Unique Building Bridges Postal Stations are set up for each cancellation for a period of 2–4 hours, some on land and some on water. Every cancellation ceremony in the series has special events as part of a celebration.
Hand cancelling [40] a stamp on the water is a challenge because it requires stillness of the surface being stamped so the postal worker can ink the hand stamp and place it on the envelope without smearing. [41]
Date | Event | Location | Stamps / Cancellation slogan | Credits and notes | Refs |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
May 29, 1996 | Building Bridges of Peace Awards and Breast Cancer Awareness Stamp Unveiiling | Walnut Creek Main Post Office |
|
| [3] |
October 11, 1996 | Kendall Ross Bean Concerts for Kids | Hoffman Theater (Dean Lesher Regional Center of the Arts), Walnut Creek, CA |
|
| [42] [5] |
October 26, 1996 | Contra Costa Newspapers Health and Safety Fair Expo | Countrywood Shopping Plaza, Walnut Creek, CA |
|
| [5] |
April 23, 2017 | 100th PICYA Opening Day on the San Francisco Bay | Pier 3, San Francisco Bay, San Francisco; Jack London Square, Oakland |
|
| [43] |
November 17, 2018 | 80th Year Music Recording History in Berkeley Celebration | USPS, Berkeley, CA |
|
| [34] |
February 23, 2019 | Black History Month: SF Jazz Center Family Matinee Concert | SFJAZZ Center, San Francisco, CA |
|
| [44] |
April 19, 2019, April 21, 2019 | 30th Birthday of Lady Washington Journey from Pier 39 to Aberdeen | Sports Byline USA, Pier 39, San Francisco, CA |
|
| [45] [46] |
April 29, 2019 | 30th Birthday of Lady Washington Journey from Pier 39 to Aberdeen | Hawaiian Chieftain Tall Ship, Eureka, CA |
|
| [45] [46] [23] |
February 18, 2021 | The Bicentennial of the Independence of Peru, Golden Gate International Exposition, BAP Unión | Treasure Island Museum, San Francisco |
|
| [2] [39] |
May 10, 2022 | Glenn L. Martin 1 of 5 Cancellations in a Series | Balboa Pier, Newport Beach, CA |
|
| [1] [47] |
May 10, 2022 | Glenn L. Martin 2 of 5 Cancellations in a Series | On beach near Glenn L. Martin's landing, Avalon, CA and Catalina Island Museum for Art & History |
|
| [1] [48] [49] |
May 14, 2022 | Glenn L. Martin 3 of 5 Cancellations in a Series | Catalina Island Casino, Avalon, CA |
|
| [1] [49] |
May 15, 2022 | Glenn L. Martin 4 of 5 Cancellations in a Series | Catalina Island Country Club, Avalon, CA |
|
| [1] [49] |
May 16, 2022 | Glenn L. Martin 5 of 5 Cancellations in a Series | Flight Path Museum LAX, Los Angeles, CA |
|
| [1] [49] |
A postmark is a postal marking made on an envelope, parcel, postcard or the like, indicating the place, date and time that the item was delivered into the care of a postal service, or sometimes indicating where and when received or in transit. Modern postmarks are often applied simultaneously with the cancellation or killer that marks postage stamps as having been used. Sometimes a postmark alone is used to cancel stamps, and the two terms are often used interchangeably. Postmarks may be applied by handstamp or machine, using methods such as rollers or inkjets, while digital postmarks are a recent innovation.
A cancellation is a postal marking applied on a postage stamp or postal stationery to deface the stamp and to prevent its reuse. Cancellations come in a huge variety of designs, shapes, sizes, and colors. Modern cancellations commonly include the date and post office location where the stamps were mailed, in addition to lines or bars designed to cover the stamp itself. The term "postmark" refers specifically to the part that contains the date and posting location, but the term is often used interchangeably with "cancellation" as it may serve that purpose. The portion of a cancellation that is designed to deface the stamp and does not contain writing is also called the "obliteration" or killer. Some stamps are issued pre-cancelled with a printed or stamped cancellation and do not need to have a cancellation added. Cancellations can affect the value of stamps to collectors, positively or negatively. Cancellations of some countries have been extensively studied by philatelists, and many stamp collectors and postal history collectors collect cancellations in addition to the stamps themselves.
Lafayette is a city in Contra Costa County, California, United States. As of 2020, the city's population was 25,391. It was named after the Marquis de Lafayette, a French military officer of the American Revolutionary War.
Postal service in the United States began with the delivery of stampless letters whose cost was borne by the receiving person, later encompassed pre-paid letters carried by private mail carriers and provisional post offices, and culminated in a system of universal prepayment that required all letters to bear nationally issued adhesive postage stamps.
AC Transit is an Oakland-based public transit agency serving the western portions of Alameda and Contra Costa counties in the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area. AC Transit also operates "Transbay" routes across San Francisco Bay to San Francisco and selected areas in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties. AC Transit is constituted as a special district under California law. It is governed by seven elected members. It is not a part of or under the control of Alameda or Contra Costa counties or any local jurisdictions.
A personalised (or personalized) stamp is a postage stamp on which, for a fee, an image and/or text of the purchaser's choosing may be placed. The stamps vary from country to country, and while some are normal stamps with a personalised label on the left attached by perforations, elsewhere the stamps are more properly regarded as one-piece personalised meter stamps with a colourful design next to the indicia. Stamps produced by Zazzle.com for the United States, for instance, are one-piece, self-adhesive with die cut margins to emulate perforations, and visually very similar to normal United States postage stamps, except for the addition of an information-based indicia (IBI) encoded by little black and white squares along one edge. A serial number appears next to the IBI.
The East Bay is the eastern region of the San Francisco Bay Area and includes cities along the eastern shores of the San Francisco Bay and San Pablo Bay. The region has grown to include inland communities in Alameda and Contra Costa counties. With a population of roughly 2.5 million in 2010, it is the most populous subregion in the Bay Area.
19th Street Oakland station is an underground Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) station located under Broadway between 17th Street and 20th Street in the Uptown District of Oakland, California. It is a timed transfer point between northbound trains to Richmond and to Antioch. The station has three underground levels, with tracks on the second and third levels. It is served by the Red Line, Orange Line, and Yellow Line, as well as by AC Transit buses on the surface at the Uptown Transit Center.
Pleasant Hill/Contra Costa Centre station is a Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) station serving the Contra Costa Centre Transit Village in Contra Costa Centre, California, just north of Walnut Creek and just east of Pleasant Hill. It is served by the Yellow Line.
Richmond station is an Amtrak intercity rail and Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) station located in downtown Richmond, California. Richmond is the north terminus of BART service on the Orange Line and Red Line; it is a stop for Amtrak's Capitol Corridor, San Joaquins, and California Zephyr routes. The accessible station has one island platform for the two BART tracks, with a second island platform serving two of the three tracks of the Union Pacific Railroad Martinez Subdivision for Amtrak trains. It is one of two transfer points between BART and Amtrak, along with Oakland Coliseum station.
The East Bay Times is a daily broadsheet newspaper based in Walnut Creek, California, United States, owned by the Bay Area News Group (BANG), a subsidiary of Media News Group, that serves Contra Costa and Alameda counties, in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. It was founded as the Contra Costa Times, and took its current name in 2016 when it was merged with other sister papers in the East Bay. Its oldest merged title is the Oakland Tribune founded in 1874.
The station complex of Amtrak's Oakland Coliseum station and Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART)'s Coliseum station is located in the East Oakland area of Oakland, California, United States. The two stations, located about 600 feet (180 m) apart, are connected to each other and to the Oakland Coliseum/Oakland Arena sports complex with an accessible pedestrian bridge. The BART station is served by the Orange, Green, and Blue lines; the Amtrak station is served by the Capitol Corridor service.
Sports Byline USA is an international sports radio network based in the United States. Sports Byline USA is also the name of the flagship program on the network. It was the first national sports talk show and was launched on October 24, 1988. Sports Byline USA is located in San Francisco, California. Nationally, the network claims programming is heard on 200 satellite radio stations, was on Sirius Satellite Radio channel 122, and on CRN Digital Talk Radio Networks channel 2. The station is also available on several international stations and is the main sports programming of the American Forces Network which broadcasts on 500 radio stations in 177 countries. Sports Byline USA is no longer on Sirius XM 122 which is now CNBC, but its sister program, Sports Overnight America is on Sirius XM 203.
SportsTalk Live is a television sports discussion series that airs on NBC Sports Bay Area in the United States.
The J.B. Catalogue of Malta Stamps and Postal History is Malta's leading stamp catalogue. It was first published in 1984 and is published bi-annually by Joseph Buttigieg of Sliema Stamp Shop. It is currently in its twenty-second edition (2014). The catalogue originally used the SG numbering system, but from the early 1990s it had separate numbering. It is in English and the prices were denominated in Maltese pounds until 2006, and euros from 2008.
BAP Unión (BEV-161) is a training ship of the Peruvian Navy built in 2012–2015 by Shipyard Marine Industrial Services of Peru, known as SIMA. It is a four-masted, steel-hulled, class "A" barque, composed of 38 steel modules. It has a total length of 115.50 m ; a beam of 13.50 m ; a draft of 6.50 m ; an air draft of 53.50 m ; a displacement of 3,200 tonnes; a speed of 12 knots (22 km/h) and a crew of 250 officers and trainees. The ship's name honors a Peruvian corvette that took part in the first stage of the 1879–1883 War of the Pacific as part of a naval squadron under the command of Miguel Grau, a hero of the Peruvian Navy.
Jacques Schnier (1898–1988) was a Romanian-born American artist, sculptor, author, educator, and engineer. He was a sculpture professor at the University of California, Berkeley from 1936 to 1966.
Tempo is a bus rapid transit (BRT) service in Oakland and San Leandro in California. It is operated by AC Transit as Line 1T. The route has dedicated lanes and center-boarding stations along much of the corridor, prepaid fares, signal preemption, and all-door boarding. It is AC Transit's busiest bus route, with an average of 13,615 riders boarding each weekday in Fall 2022.
The Bicentennial of the Independence of Peru occurred on 28 July 2021. Its celebration commemorated 200 years since Peru's proclamation of Independence. The celebration consisted of a mix of local, state, and national activities that were planned since 2016. On 8 August 2016, the Prime Minister of Peru announced the creation of the Organizing Commission for the Commemoration of the Bicentennial of the Independence of Peru.
Kendall Ross Bean is an American composer, concert pianist, piano rebuilder, historian and entrepreneur from the San Francisco Bay Area.