ASU honors legacy of Ed Pastor at downtown Phoenix post office bearing his name
ASU President Michael Crow presents Verma Pastor, wife of the late Ed Pastor, with a framed photo of the Ed Pastor Post Office displaying its new name at a celebration for the renaming Monday on the Downtown Phoenix campus. Ed Pastor, a longtime U.S. representative and an ASU alumnus, was committed to public service. Photo by Charlie Leight/ASU News
From the moment they met 23 years ago, Arizona State University President Michael Crow knew he had found a kindred spirit in Congressman Ed Pastor.
Crow spoke about that long-ago meeting during a May 19 ceremony honoring Pastor and celebrating the addition of Pastor’s name on the Downtown Phoenix Post Office.
“This is a guy I can work with,” Crow recalled saying to himself as he became acquainted with the late former U.S. representative from Arizona. From 1991 to 2015, Pastor represented central and west Phoenix and part of Glendale in Congress. He died in 2018 at the age of 75.
Both men shared a dedication to making a positive difference in people’s lives and accomplishing what they set out to do.
Crow remembered that every time they met, Pastor would say, “What do you need?”
He said Pastor, an alum, believed in ASU’s becoming “a great public university of the size and scale that leaves no one behind.”
Crow also recalled Pastor’s kindness and commitment to service.
“I knew instantly in 2002 that he and I would be able to make things happen and get things done,” he said.
Crow said Pastor would be proud of ASU today, just as he was at the time of his death. More than 85,000 ASU students are on campus today, said Crow, who also noted the university is the nation’s second-largest producer of Latino graduates, the largest producer of Indigenous graduates, the ninth-largest producer of African American graduates and the largest producer of undergraduate degrees of any other single U.S. higher educational institution.
Crow said because of Pastor’s efforts, today ASU owns the post office building that bears his name, a main element of the Downtown Phoenix campus that is historically connected to its neighborhood.
“We have an operating post office of the United States Postal Service. We have a student center for the downtown campus. We have offices and meeting rooms for the broader community,” Crow said.
ASU began renovating the building in 2012.
Cynthia Lietz, ASU vice provost for the Downtown Phoenix campus and dean of the Watts College of Public Service and Community Solutions, praised Pastor and his wife, Verma, for being a force behind a multitude of accomplishments for Arizonans.
“We know that the support of your village and the people behind you make all that possible,” she said, expressing gratitude to Pastor family members.
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The historic building — now bearing its new name as the Ed Pastor Post Office — was completed in 1936 in the Spanish Colonial Revival style and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983. ASU now owns the building, which still has a working U.S. post office on the first floor, as well as space for student organizations, counseling services, administrative offices and the ASU Police Department.
Photo by Charlie Leight/ASU News
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Phoenix City Council member Laura Pastor talks about her father at the celebration Monday. Carrying on her family's legacy of public service, she was first elected in 2013 and was sworn into her third term in April 2023.
Photo by Charlie Leight/ASU News
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A portrait of the late congressman is part of the celebration Monday on the Downtown Phoenix campus. From 1991 to 2015, Pastor represented central and west Phoenix and part of Glendale in Congress. He died in 2018 at the age of 75.
Photo by Charlie Leight/ASU News
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Cynthia Lietz, ASU vice provost for the Downtown Phoenix campus and dean of the Watts College of Public Service and Community Solutions, spoke at the Monday event, praising Pastor and his wife, Verma, for being a force behind a multitude of accomplishments for Arizonans.
Photo by Charlie Leight/ASU News
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More than 50 Pastor family members and friends gather to honor the congressman who played a vital role in establishing the ASU downtown campus, whose post office now bears his name.
Photo by Charlie Leight/ASU News
Lietz noted that the Watts College is home to the Pastor Center for Politics and Public Service, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this year.
She said in many ways, the post office — which opened in 1936 and was a meeting point for a fast-growing city — today is a “connector of the downtown campus.”
Lietz said the post office, along with Civic Space Park, connects the campus’ western, central and eastern reaches.
“It’s just a really beautiful thing to me that this building now bears the name Congressman Ed Pastor, because he, too, was a connector, a bridge-builder,” she said. “In a lot of ways, this is the perfect place to be honoring his incredible long-term impact on Arizona.”
Crow presented Verma Pastor with a framed photo of the building with its new name.
“He really wanted this post office because he was thinking of the senior people next door,” Verma Pastor said, referring to the residents of the former Westward Ho hotel across the street whom her husband said needed a place to get their mail.
“He said, ‘They come and collect their monthly checks here. If we lose the post office, where are they going to go?’”
The Ed Pastor Post Office, whose operating hours can be found on USPS.com, is located at 522 N. Central Ave. in Phoenix.
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