If I hadn't walked smack into a demonstration outside my post office in SoHo this morning, I would not have known that from July 31st, my PO Box, #19, New York, New York, 10012, will cease to exist.I have received mail there for ten years, since moving to New York. It is our anniversary. I was going to give my mail box a piece of cake. Chocolate, with white stuff in the middle.
What? Snail Mail, you cry? Yes. Packages from South Africa, packages from England, from Istanbul. Letters from the Department of Homeland Security which recognizes no other form of communication (and still I am not a citizen...we wait, we wait). Magazines, postcards.
And I mail packages from here, too, and things that must be Stamped and Certified, and so does our Holly, Wood and Vine office, twelve blocks away. And so do hundreds of other businesses and human beings.
We will be in a postal wasteland. The winds will blow icy and cruel through our coats as we walk another half mile to a holdout on Canal Street.
I'm not saying visiting the post office to mail Peter Mathiessen's Shadow Country to Turkey is fun. It is not unusual to wait in line for forty minutes. The mutters of dissent in the queue regularly approach the level of mutiny, strangers bonding in intense frustration.
If you ask for a supervisor she does not arrive. I have seen her, but never when I wanted to.
The lease on 103 Prince Street expires on July 31st. Who knew the US Post Office had to sign a lease? Or could not make rent?
And why the hell do long time customers have to find out by accident? I like PO Box 19. I am attached to it.
And who knew that there were special postal police (see truck)? Not I.
The flier below was being handed out.
If this is your post office, and if you are as annoyed as we are, please call Congressman Jerrod Nadler to tell him you want your post office to stay open.
* 4/23/09: A notice in my mail box says that June 30th is the last day of the lease.
My PO is closing too, I just found out as I was mailing taxes -a t-i-n-y sign on the door saying use post office 10 blocks away. Not that bad, but mine was right near subway and within 5 minute walk of work. Ours in Kensington blows, see youtube video of guy yelling in kensington PO
ReplyDeleteHey Marie, the USPS did not cover the earlier story from the NY Post about the Prince Street couldStation closing, but they didn't ignore this yesterday. These stories were included in the Morning Report which goes to all postal executives and officers plus several hundred employees in communications related fields:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nyunews.com/news/city-state/residents-rally-to-keep-post-office-open-1.1717066 and http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/15419/