A Drive to Replace the Boerum Hill Post Office
Misdelivered mail? Undelivered packages? Terrible long lines? Tell us about your experiences and help us replace Times Plaza with a real post office! So goes the language on the Boerum Hill Association’s website about the Times Plaza Post Office on 3rd and Atlantic. The group is conducting a survey about the post office (which also…
Misdelivered mail? Undelivered packages? Terrible long lines? Tell us about your experiences and help us replace Times Plaza with a real post office! So goes the language on the Boerum Hill Association‘s website about the Times Plaza Post Office on 3rd and Atlantic. The group is conducting a survey about the post office (which also serves parts of the North Slope) because, as the Brooklyn Eagle reported, they feel The facility was outgrown decades ago, but because USPS only rents the space, they cannot make the changes necessary to run it efficiently. Continued neighborhood growth, plus Atlantic Yards, will only make the situation worse. Gowanus Lounge has posted complaints about the post office on several occasions, and we’ve witnessed the crapola service at the facility firsthand more than once (including a memorable occasion last year when the surly staff made someone cry). Residents of the 11217 Zip code can vent here.
Replace Times Plaza — With a ‘Real’ Post Office [Brooklyn Eagle] GMAP
BHA Wants Times Plaza Post Office Replaced [GL]
if you get a receipt from the post office, often at the bottom it has a “tell us how we’re doing” bit where there is a gallup poll. I always fill mine out when I get home. It’s a small thrill to just vent about how disgusting and filthy that place is. Even the ceiling is dirty. Do they even employ a cleaner?
i’ve developed a new strategy with the BH post office after several experiences similar to that of 1:30pm’s. i called the main usps number, told them a long story involving lying mail carriers (there is some totally shady business going on where they never bother to bring the package to your door, just mark it as “attempted delivery” and expect you to go get it), rude employees (including one that responded to a question with shutting the shades on his window), a seriously long line, and a lost box of xmas presents–the woman connected me to the better business bureau that oversees that office. i talked to them, they called the post office, and within an hour they had magically found my lost package and delivered it to my house.
I received a notice that I had a package at the Boerum Hill Post Office. I went there, put a couple quarters in the meter, and after almost an hour’s wait – running in and out to feed the meter more quarters – the agents at the windows wouldn’t serve anyone else after the person in front of me. There were six people, including myself, waiting there for the longest time and – when I tried asking one agent why were being denied service, she accused us of having “snuck in” after they announced the post office “was now closed”. I asked the agent when did they anounce it and she said she didn’t know, but yet she knew that they did. I was stunned. the agent would not give me her name – she downright refused. Three of us who remained waited until we could speak to the manager of the post office. This man came to the window after another 20 minutes, I guess hoping we would just leave – and he stated that when they close – they’re closed and we’ll all have to come back tomorrow. I asked for the post master general’s information and who I would contact to submit a complaint. He gave me a phone number and an address to mail a written complaint to. I did send a letter and called and spoke with someone. People, you need to take the time to write or call whoever is in charge if we expect anything to change. Accountability matters. Ultimately I left there so furious, I vowed to never go there again at all cost. Oh, and I got a parking ticket too. Whoever runs Craig’s List, please post the Postmaster Generals information on your website and make a change in this town!
We, here in Bed Stuy/Crown Heights, who use the Brevoort PO(11216) at Atlantic Ave, between Nostrand and Bedford, have been complaining for literally, a generation. It was dreadful in 1983 when I moved to the area, and it’s only marginally better now. The use of computers has made it move a bit faster, especially in terms of doing money orders and weighing packages. They still frequently send back packages to sender that I have received no notice of. The workers, I have to say, are much nicer than the ones they used to have.
When it was a 90% minority use PO, we used to stand in line and grumble that it was because we were in the ‘hood, and nobody cared. Now that the area is upscaling, and the lines are a rainbow of ethnicities, we are still standing in line grumbling that we are still perceived as the ‘hood, and nobody cares. “They wouldn’t do this in white neighborhoods!” People would loudly exclaim. Well, now we know that bad service knows no color.
What all these post offices need is firm and accountable management, backed up by their management and the unions, to allow them to motivate and lead staff to better efficiency. The problem is that like all entrenched beaurocacy, they can’t conceive of doing anything different or innovative, and downright bad workers can’t be fired.
Has anyone ever been to a PO counter where the microphone-speaker system actually worked?
Yes, at the Adelphi St., Clinton Hill, everyone heard when the attendant called for the manager at a customer’s request, and said “some ass wipe wants to speak with you.” LOL.
We own a Brooklyn brownstone and are glad of it, but I agree with 12:51. Services are not on par with what the real estate now costs in Brooklyn. Even Park Slope doesn’t have everything you’d expect in a place priced at $800 to $1000 per square foot.
Gotta say this is the worst NYC PO I’ve ever been to — filthy, disorganized, and soul-killing. Every time I’m forced to go there, I compare it to Knickerbocker Station, on the Lower East Side, which handles its multi-ethnic, multi-lingual customers so much kinder and faster. Sheesh.
However: Has anyone ever been to a PO counter where the microphone-speaker system actually worked? I’m always straining to hear the person on the other side, and when I point to the mic, they just shrug and mouth the words, “It doesn’t work.”
New, affluent Brooklyn residents should be pressing the politicians and governemt agencies for better services. Unfortunately most are too busy working their asses off in Manhattan in order to keep up with their jumbo mortgage payments.
Keep in mind that most of the infrastructure in place in Brooklyn today, including mail service, is the same as when a typical brownstone sold for between $90,00 and $180,000.
Folks spending the super big bucks in Brooklyn today should understand that their millions will still only get them slum-era services.