Brooklyn Post Offices: Endless Bummer?
Is every single post office in Brooklyn a nightmare? Seems like it. There’s consistent bitching (that we hear, anyway) about three in particular. Here’s the latest on the most-loathed po’s: Kensington: Councilmember Bill De Blasio continues to work toward building a new post office for the neighborhood, which gained Internet fame via a You Tube…
Is every single post office in Brooklyn a nightmare? Seems like it. There’s consistent bitching (that we hear, anyway) about three in particular. Here’s the latest on the most-loathed po’s:
Kensington: Councilmember Bill De Blasio continues to work toward building a new post office for the neighborhood, which gained Internet fame via a You Tube vid last year. “We have been working closely with the Brooklyn Postmaster, Community Board 12 and the community,” says De Blasio. “There are still complaints regarding postal service in 11218 but I have also heard some positive feedback.We would love to see a new post office in the neighborhood or a commercial postal unit in one of the local retail stores. This community is growing at a rapid pace and business owners and residents at the very least deserve a functioning postal facility.”
Park Slope, 9th Street: The Brooklynian folks have a thread devoted to this place’s suckitude. Comments range from this observation, “The line to pick up a package that you missed because they can’t ring the correct bell is miles long. Usually 50 people waiting in the pick up line every weekend. Then it takes an average of 5-15 minutes for them to locate the package at the post office. How hard is it to have two people or more working the pick up line on Saturday’s.” to this one, “What do you expect from people who smoke too much crack (as i learned when i went to a party held by people who worked for the Brooklyn Post Office)?”
Boerum Hill, Atlantic near 4th Ave.: This is another neighborhood where there’s noise about replacing the post office. GL reported the latest complaints about the facility yesterday, with one person saying they “had a horrendous, Third World experience at the Times Plaza” and another writing, “I have never had a package or letter that needed to be signed for delivered by them!”
So. Are there any halfway decent post offices in this borough?
A Drive to Replace the Post Office [Brownstoner]
Return to the Times Plaza Post Office: Not Fixed [Gowanus Lounge]
9th St Post Office [Brooklynian]
IF you must go to Vanderveer, the best time isn at 6:30, cos that’s when the clerks will work fast. The P.O. closes at 7pm and they want to buck out of there to go home, so they will get you done fast. It seems in that last 1/2 hour is when the clerks decide to wake up and work.
The Vandeveer P.O. on Nostrand Avenue between Ave I & J is one of the worst. They never have more than 3 clerks for a long long line and the stamp machines don’t work, and the windows to pick up packages are never manned by anyone, so you have to get on the regular mailing/weighing line, and the clerk then has to leave the window to get pkg.
When there is a long line and only 2 clerks, you can hear a bunch of other workers whooping it up and joking from behind the personnel doors. Think some of them would come out and actually do work…..no!
The best P.O. is the Ryder Station on Flatbush and Avenue P. I’ve gone there when there is a very long line and never been on line more than 20 minutes. All windows have clerks in them. PLUS I have mailed same weight pkg and/or envelopes one day apart at both Vanderveer and Ryder and Vanderveer ALWAYS charges more. Ryder also gives you choice of how to send and points out if there is a cheaper class. Vanderveer just automatically makes it priority and charges more without giving any choice of parcel post.
There is one person at Vanderveer who is very good and works fast, I don’t know her name but she is the only Russian woman clerk.
Rather than go to Vanderveer, if I can’t get to Ryder, I will mail at Foodtown on Ralph Avenue cos they have a post office and I can mail there when I go do my shopping.
At the Post Office in Bushwick on Debevoise, there definitely were workers who only had a rudimentary grasp of English. The service levels were mixed but the line was long all day long and moved incredibly slowly.
The much maligned Red Hook office was like Heaven in comparison.
Having recently moved out of NYC, I can tell you Post Offices in other cities feel like tranquil spas in comparison.
There is not enough space here to compile all of the complaints on Adelphi Station. Like that time I received a package slip a MONTH after a package arrived me for me at the PO, and they had, of course, sent it back because it was unclaimed for a month. Guess I didn’t receive that telepathic message they sent initially.
No 6:54 you are retarded, you can’t even follow the progression of a simple discussion, nor figure out who supports your stated positions or not. Luckily for all of us you will be out of the workforce soon
4:43 Nope, not retarded, just planning to retire by 50 and on no one else’s back but my own. I’ll take the SS check if it is still around but not planning for it. “Comes out of my paycheck” what a concept! You must work for the Post Office. You are sheep. Bahh! You represent the dumbing down of America. Go do as your told now.
4:17 A pension is better because when your union under funds it you can just go hat in hand to your local pols and stick the taxpayers with the bill.
LOL 3:00 PM–“improvement” is always relative–you should have seen the Empire Blvd. PO 20 years ago. 🙂
Actually the last time a went there, a couple of weeks ago, there was NO ONE ahead of me and I was out in 90 seconds–THAT was very unusual.
I used to favor the Van Brunt branch on 9th Street, but the degree of rudeness there in the last couple of years has become unbelievable–I’ve heard the clerks at 9th Street scream at customers on a number of occasions and it’s the only PO branch where I’ve been lied to and over charged on rates.
4:17 – are you retarded? – if I fund my 401k – then the money is coming out of my PAYCHECK; a pension is generally a form of deffered COMPENSATION that the EMPLOYER is paying for.
No matter how much I fund my 401k and even if I manage 90% annual returns on the investments and end up a billionaire – a pension is still “better” because the EMPLOYER pays – (I can still make all the 90% return investments I want with MY $)