AROUND THE PARK AGAIN by Sharon Lee Tegler
Today, Severna Park is in transition from suburban to urban. But, from its origin as a farm community named Boone, Maryland over a century ago until today, the six buildings that have housed Severna Park’s post offices have served a vital function, – connecting the community to the nation and other nations while connecting residents to each other.
A small core of family businesses supplied Boone’s families with food, household items, farm tools and fuel. But there was a serious need for mail service for communication with the outside world and for the goods and services it could provide.
Established in 1914, the fledgling Boone Post Office, quickly outgrew its original site in Grotsky’s General Store at 4 Riggs Avenue. In 1919, it moved into a newly constructed building it shared with the Boone Train Station. Two years later, when the town changed its name, the facility was renamed Severna Park Train Station. But the post office retained its original Boone name until 1925 when it became the Severna Park Post Office. It continued operating from the train station for two more decades.
After the discontinuation of train service in 1944, the mail service was run from Cliff Dawson’s Store in the old Codd Building on Riggs Avenue and later moved across B&A Boulevard to Dawson’s new store at the corner of McKinsey Road.
A need to expand further to serve the growing community prompted a move to the property at 513 Baltimore and Annapolis Boulevard in 1962 – the post office building familiar to generations of residents (seen in the opening photograph). The building housed 33 employees serving 35 neighborhoods with a combined population of 19,000 people.
Clerks manned five windows while a supervisor managed operations from a catwalk above. City and rural carriers worked in the back in plain sight of patrons
Theresa Marozza, who was a clerk there for four “happy but busy” decades, spoke with us about what it was like prior to her retirement in October of 2009.
Marozza was hired by the post office in March, 1968 as a clerk/carrier. To get the job, she had to be capable of lifting 70 pounds. Clerks were required to tote heavy mailbags, catalogs, phone books and license plates. She also had to apply for a federal driver’s license to operate mail trucks. Her $2.80 an hour salary was the most money she’d ever made.
Workdays were frenetic and the hours long. The entire staff shared a single postage meter and one adding machine. Undaunted, they sorted and canceled 15,000 envelopes and packages a day by hand on a machine that constantly ran out of ink.
“We’d hit the truck, sort all the mail and put it through the canceling machine. I’d head out front with the mail pouch at 12:10 pm to wait for a bus to pick it up. Then we’d sort the mail that came in,” Marozza said.
“We’d hit the boxes at 7 p.m., sort that, cancel it and have it ready for the truck at 7:30. Several of us would then dash home to make dinner for our husbands and children.”
Regardless, the mood was welcoming and pleasant. Employees had time to establish relationships with their customers.
Marozza remained upbeat as the post office evolved through the decades in response to automation, population growth and economics. She said the most significant change occurred when Severna Park’s first postmaster, Jerry Brockmeyer, who’d lived in the community all his life, retired in 1979. The atmosphere changed then, becoming less personal and more businesslike.
The introduction of electronic sorting machines was another difficult transition. Rather than being sorted on-site, mail was shipped to Baltimore leading to staff reductions. In 1993, the carriers – Marozza’s friends and neighbors from Severna Park – were transferred en masse to the Delivery Distribution Unit at Earleigh Heights.
Characteristically, Marozza adapted and found time to focus on her fellow clerks and customers. She loved working at the post office so much that she postponed her retirement and, afterward, remained friends with many former customers. She’s still active as a member of St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church and continues to volunteer at the Basilica of the Assumption in Baltimore and Mary’s Center, a crisis pregnancy center in Glen Burnie.
Despite Severna Park’s dramatic expansion over the next 17 years, the branch at 513 Baltmore and Annapolis Boulevard continued to serve as an anchor for the community – a place where residents ran into each other on a regular basis. But a major change took place on February 14, 2011 when the post office moved from the location it had operated at for nearly 50 years to shared facilities at the aforementioned Delivery Distribution Unit building on Magothy Bridge Road.
The Severna Park Post Office relocated to shared facilities ad the USPS Delivery Distribution Unit building on Magothy Bridge Road at the very edge of Severna Park. Courtesy Photo
Exact figures aren’t available, but according to the current Severna Park Post Office, the facility processes approximately a million pieces of mail for local households and businesses. The building sees heavy traffic daily as residents visit post office boxes, drop off packages, or apply for passports. Lines are sometimes long as there are not as many clerks working as in the past. Many residents feel the location lacks the community oriented personality its predecessor had.
Following the 2011 relocation, the former post office building in Olde Severna Park sat empty until taken over and transformed by brothers Peter and Ron Zarilli in 2013 and opened as Zarilli’s Steaks and Hoagies in December of 2015. They considered keeping the clerk’s enclosure but realized it would have split the dining room. They did retain a small portion of the sorting area in the back. All through demolition and reconstruction people would wander in with letters in hand thinking the building was still the post office Peter said.
The former post office building in transition after taken over by Peter and Ron Zarilli. 
Peter Zarilli showed off the restaurant’s impressive deli counter.
Unfortunately, the Zarilli’s faced stiff competition from similar local businesses at the time and were unable to attract a following large enough to survive.
In February of 2017, thanks to Severna Park native Charlie Priolla and one-time partner Arturo Ottaviano, the imaginatively named La Posta Pizzeria and Italian Kitchen was born ……..and a little bit of Severna Park’s postal history preserved. The partners put their “stamp” on La Posta with the installation of a specially built wood-fired oven that reaches 900 degrees.
These days Priola, longtime owner of Mangia Italian Grill & Sports Cafe on Main Street in Annapolis, and wife Susie are at the helm serving the wood-fired pizzas, pastas, and traditional Italian entrees they are known for. Because of COVID-19 restrictions, they added outdoor tables and a charming garden to the restaurant last summer which proved quite popular.
According to Charlie, the staff still fields the occasional question about the restaurant’s history as the Severna Park Post Office. Most are delighted to see the building in use with its original theme carried forward.
Severn River Association reports Seine Net Fishing Bill HB 843 dead
The Severn River Association reports that Bill HB 843, which would have allowed commercial seine net fishing at Lake Ogleton, Whitehall and Meredith Creeks, died in the House of Delegates on March 19. The bill was defeated, in large measure, thanks to calls and emails to the Maryland House Environment and Transportation Committee which declined to move HB 843 out of committee, effectively killing the measure.
