Village Mail-Call makes last call
JULIE LEVTOW shows a notebook with handwritten entries of fingerprints taken from 1993-96, before her business entered the computer age.
Julie Levtow is retiring after 40 years of serving as a notary and taking passport photos at her shipping and mailing business in Larchmont Village Square.
While she is closing Village Mail-Call, at 419 N. Larchmont Blvd., on March 31, she will continue to offer services to her older clientele, many of whom she considers her friends, from her Gower Street home.
Many of her customers are children and grandchildren of her earlier clientele. But regardless of their age, Julie welcomes everyone with a smile and helpful attitude. If her Yelp reviews are any indication, the neighborhood will be sorry to see her go.
She’s taken some 14,000 fingerprints in her career — from the ink type to today’s electronic live scan version.
Her late husband, Kenneth Levtow, introduced her to the business and also to the world of opera and symphonies, which have developed into a passion. She is on the Board of the Opera League of Los Angeles and also serves as its photographer. “I joined the board, since I’m already always there,” she said of the performances and lectures held at the Music Center. Her car has a bumper sticker that reads: “Give Opera a Chance.”
Levtow was a journalist writing about off-shore drilling and other issues for a newspaper in Hong Kong when she met her future husband, who worked in garment manufacturing at the time.
Julie joined Kenneth in the U.S., where she earned a master’s degree from U.S. International University (now Alliant International University) in San Diego and had planned to continue in journalism. But, she joined her husband in business and never looked back. (Kenneth Levtow died 20 years ago.)
“I’ve seen the industry develop and grow,” she said of her long career. Companies like UPS, which once were only carriers, now offer more services in line with what her shop offered from the start.
In this new chapter of her life, she looks forward to traveling. “I want to see the world and see the other side of the U.S.,” she said. All the while, she plans on keeping a close watch on Larchmont.
She’s glad to see Romi Cortier as new president of the Larchmont Boulevard Association and the beautification of the Village, with new planters and benches and other positive changes made by her longtime neighbor (Cortier owns a hair salon next door to Village Mail-Call.) “It’s really exciting to see all the changes in the neighborhood.”
Category: Real Estate
