After nearly a year of speculation, the day is upon us (without much notice): The Peter Stuyvesant Post Office closes for good today at 1 p.m.
EVG reader EVJenn shared this sign hanging in the lobby from yesterday … where there was "hysteria abounding"…
The branch here on East 14th Street near Avenue A will be open tomorrow JUST for P.O. Box customers… and the new location will be open Monday at 333 E. 14th St., the former Duane Reade that the USPS is leasing JUST for retail services, such as stamp sales and P.O. boxes. (EVG regular Ken from Ken's Kitchen has pointed out that large parcel services will operate out of the F.D.R. Station at East 54th Street and Third Avenue. Convenient!)
[Photo from Feb. 12]
Initially, word was that the USPS was unable to come to terms on a new lease with the building's owner. However, a rep for the owner, Benenson Capital Partners, told the Town & Village blog and the Save the Post Office blog that it was actually the USPS's decision to leave because of a desire to downsize.
Last fall, the Stuyvesant Stationery shop next door to the post office at 432 E. 14th St. lost its lease and closed. So they'll be some space here for some kind of new development.
Previously on EV Grieve:
UPDATED: Did you hear the rumor about the Peter Stuyvesant Post Office branch closing?
Report: Closure of the Peter Stuyvesant Post Office is pretty much a done deal
Today in rants: the Peter Stuyvesant Post Office
Meanwhile, at everyone's favorite local post office branch...
Reader mailbag: What has happened to the Cooper Station Post Office?
35 comments:
Dirty harry
Burn it down. Salt the earth.
Large parcel at E. 54th and 3rd. Yeah, that makes lots of sense. And everyone who has to send a parcel is standing in line on 4th Avenue 'cause it's "not" their new post office...soon the lines will be out the door!
I guess it's UPS and Fedex for me going forward. RIP USPS.
Wait, you're telling me that when the postman drops off a "parcel" notice, or when something needs a signature, we all have to trek up to 53rd?!
That's crazy.
The only thing I'll miss about this place is that it's a building that's been in the neighborhood for a long, long time. Otherwise, good riddance to the shitty service.
As far as parcel pick up, if we all now have to go to 53rd St., it looks like bad service just got worse.
If you ask me, it seems that whoever is pulling the strings wants the USPS to fail in order to force people to actually WANT mail service to be privatized.
Wow, so many memories of waiting on line for over an hour to pick up a package, especially those Columbia House CDs back in the 90s. I remember when they lost a my acceptance letter to the university I really wanted to go to. And lets never forget the countless arguments at the teller windows, explaining to elderly line members that, no really, I was here first. The teller just asked me to fill in another form.
Good times.
I'm rarely for demolishing an east village building, but that is one eye sore I hope gets knocked down.
The Patchin Place post office on West 10th Street and Sixth Avenue has been closed for more than a week due to an "emergency." No indication when it will reopen. The Cooper Station is not only taking the overload from the two closed offices, but, according to one mail desk clerk, the staff is below staff levels: 3 people out with injuries, 7 retired or quite. The lines will only get longer as we approach tax time. There seems to be bad personnel management in Cooper--bad because of poor deployment of staff. Remember it is not the clerk's fault, and screaming at them, as someone did the other morning doesn't help their situation. Letters to the District Post Office administrator, letters to our council people (although they have nothing to do with it--they can place . speak for public pressure),
The PO wants to downsize so they close a site that is always full and busy, and split the services in-between two locations, one of which is almost two miles away, in a city where most people don't have cars. And with thinking like this, is it any wonder the service is in such trouble? Last time I was in Stuyvesant I overheard one of the workers telling a PO box customer that there were less boxes in the Duane Reade than at the 14th and A site, so she was not going to be able to transfer the service. Needless to say, she was flipping out.
The service at this post office has been awful for years and years. This is not a new development. They've lost so much of our mail and packages that we now either deal with everything online or have the rare package delivered at work.There haven't been package pick up slips left since forever on our block. I may buy some cheap champagne, put it in a thermos, and go toast the demise of this terrible place.
How the fuck is this allowed? Having to go to midtown to pick up a package? Not to mention it's usually their fault for their fucked up mis-deliveries, etc. This should not be allowed in our tax-paying functioning economy with over-inflated rents! That's crazy!
Does this mean we will have to go to 54th street to mail packages as well as pick them up? Anybody know?
is this the ghettoization of the east village taking place? will walls go up to keep us in? no post office for how many million people? but east bumfuck PA has a nice empty po you can drive right into and park.
Thanks for this info. I have a pobox here and wasn't alerted to the specific closing date!
Ate we sure we have to 54th St for packages? That notice says "windows with full retail service" will open implying package mailing and pick up.
This is from the Save the Post Office blog (linked to this in the post) ... from a USPS public meeting at Campos Plaza last spring featuring USPS real estate specialist Joseph Mulvey:
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According to the plan outlined by Mr. Mulvey, the new storefront would offer retail services, such as stamp sales and P.O. boxes. But letter carriers and large parcel services would need to be moved elsewhere.
The carriers would be transferred to the Madison Square Station, on East 23rd Street near Third Ave. Since most of the carrier routes served by Peter Stuyvesant Station are south of 14th Street and east of First Avenue, this new home for the carriers would be many blocks away from their routes.
Large parcel services would operate out of the F.D.R. Station at 54th St. and Third Avenue. That’s quite a ways away from the area served by Peter Stuyvesant.
Just a tip: If you're currently using Manhattan Mini Storage or Keepers (or one of the other storage facilities in the neighborhood), they will typically collect packages for you along with other mail. It'll allow you to collect your mail and *still* keep your sense of dignity. Imagine that!
Any word on what time the public executions of the managers of this place are due to begin? I'm going to start collecting rotting vegetables now.
Jill, Retail refers to buying stamps and mailing things including mailing packages (the left windows at stuy) as opposed to package pickup from attempted home deliveries (rightmost window).
The package pickup on 54th, if true, is ridiculous. Why didn't they indicate that on the new location notice? If it turns out to be the case, then of course Anon at 9:06 is correct--this is a case of pushing things toward privatization. Even if it took an hour to pick up a package at Stuyvesant, the round trip + standing in line will make it even worse so I don't see the point in popping champagne over this demise. For those of us who work daytime hours, and with no doorman, this is super bad news.
two words: Amazon drones
Privatization, indeed.
I hope there will be APC (Automated Postal Center) Machines at the new location.
That is ridiculous, package pickup on 54th Street. LARGE package pickup. Who determines whether the parcel is large and must be fetched from uptown? In the meantime, My Little Village Postal Store at 9th and 1st lets you get packages there for I think $2.00 a pop, free if you rent a box there. Might be worth it if you don't get a lot of parcels, and a box is $30. a month, which I don't know how that compares to USPS box rents.
Kinda bummed that this is closing because this is were I drop off packages.
Does anyone know if I can drop off packages to be shipped internationally at the Tompkins Square Post Office on 3rd and Ave B?
I live in a building with a doorman and the mail carriers still leave those little slips...I sometimes suspect they'd rather do that than schlep the packages around on their route.
Warning to unsuspecting shoppers: a lot of places now ship by semi-UPS (or should I say pseudo-UPS) -- your package leaves Amazon by UPS but is delivered to the Post Office, which then delivers to you...we know how that story goes. Be careful!
This is no surprise to anyone whose been paying any attention.Tthe old Duane Reade space hardly has enough space for packages, it's practically postage-stamp sized. Anyway look on the bright side, there's some really good shopping up in midtown so when you have to go up there hunting for your package you can check out the boutiques, drop by Bloomingdales or get a steak dinner at Smith & Wolenskis and turn the trip into a little New York adventure. Think about it as Postal Tourism.
Anon 4:30 - It is unlikely that your regular postal-delivery-person carries around any package larger then what will fit in the average building's postal boxes. Packages are likely delivered by a dedicated truck.
Well, I've had a box at "My Little Village Postal Center" for a few years now because I hated playing tag with the delivery people when I had a package delivered. Anyone who doesn't have a doorman knows what I mean; I live in a walkup, and it used to take me up to a week to get a package delivered.
But this is going to be a real shot in the arm for the third-party postal places in our neighborhood; when I started corresponding with a prisoner several years ago, I chose to get a third-party mailbox rather than a post-office box, so I can get UPS and FedEx deliveries as well as USPS.
Don't you notice there are a lot of these mail-drop places around now? It's the wave of the future.
To those suggesting that this move by the USPS is an attempt to nudge itself towards privatization, that is the same view held by the union rep I spoke with after the Campos meeting with Mulvey.
As to the why of it. The USPS is overseen by Congress and directly governed by a board made up of a chairman and 8 other members, all appointed by the president. There are only 4 members currently sitting on the board, all partisan Republicans appointed by former President Bush. Obama has had none approved by congress yet.
As for the role of Congress in this. It passed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act in 2006 which requires USPS to pre-fund its future health care benefit payments to retirees for the next 75 years -- in a ten-year time span. Meaning that it has to put aside $ billions to pay for the health benefits of employees who haven't even been born yet. Which is something that no other government entity or private corporation in the US is required to do.
That Duane Reade wasn't so tiny, and they had the basement renovated after it was Gristedes. Seems to me that it would be big enough to sort mail and store packages waiting for pickup. Looking inside it seems that they made the customer area pretty small, so the work area in the back and basement would be fairly spacious. Not having the back where the trucks went is probably what is being moved to another facility, so perhaps packages will be sorted at a different location to load onto the trucks, but the customer service part handled at the store. i hope. all conjecture until mr grieve uncovers he true facts.
If that space was too small for Duane Reade which moved into a much nicer and bigger 3 floor space around the corner, I'm guessing it's way too small for a full service post office. Or maybe they're just planning on selling holiday candy, toothpaste and Kleenex, in which case the new space should be just fine.
Just as an FYI, My LIttle Village Postal now requires anyone who receives packages there to pay for a post office box. There was some kind of legal thing where you just can't pay the 3 bucks anymore to pick up a package, instead rent a box and still get your package quickly, no line, no bullshit. Having said that, I am glad to use their service, have my regular mail forwarded to them, etc. since the 14ths has sucked for decades. The place was a fucking disgrace.
EV is now midtown South, thus one needs to go to the F.D.R. station for the large parcels.
As for New York, New York 10009 ...
The link is right but Town & Country =/= Town & Village. Hooray for copy editing!
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