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]
Brevoort Station (Atlantic Ave/Bedford) sucks too, for all of the reasons listed above. It serves Bed Stuy and Crown Hts.
When I think of the phrase “go postal”, I think about the people on the lines snapping and killing every postal worker in sight. There are days…..
On the bright side, the woman who delivers packages in the truck is the only delivery person from the PO who ever understood the concept that no one is standing by the door when they ring. She actually waits until someone can get down the stairs, a whole 5 minutes or so. She’s usually not smiling, but who cares, she’s not leaving those dreaded notices.
Also, not all UPS employees are unionized. From “Labor Notes”:
“UPS’s heavyweight status in the economy and U.S. labor movement underscore the significance of these negotiations. UPS is one of the nation’s biggest employers, with 407,000 union and **non-union** employees, and one of the world’s leading companies in three related industries: delivery, logistics, and freight.”
http://www.labornotes.org/node/661
I’d bet a million dollars that the UPS employee who served 10:09 was NOT a union member and that the P.O. employee who was rude to him/her was a union member.
Cool your jets, 10:12. While this UPS office may have been well-run, unionized workforces are generally less-efficient, bloated, and overpaid for what they do. They’re a big reason why so many jobs have moved overseas.
The little P.O. on Prospect Park West in Windsor Terrace used to be a terrific alternative to the time-sucker on 7th Ave. in Park Slope…until they put up the Lexan partitions. Overnight, the pleasant and efficient staff turned into sullen zombies. Then, of course, for the complete Stalinist-Russia meets Third-World experience, check out the Church Ave. P.O. near Bedford Avenue, where sorrowful immigrants wait for hours to mail drums of stuff back to the islands while one or two slab-faced figures move as slowly as drugged cows behind the few open windows. (The others may sport a variety of idiotic hand-lettered signs affixed with tape, explaining various reasons to lose hope.)
However, for a really wonderful, Mayberry-esque P.O. experience, I heartily recommend the P.O. in Sherman, Connecticut. It is next door to a very nice pie bakery and restaurant, too.
The Pine Street PO was great. It is now closed but replaced by a small one at the end of Exchange Place just south of Wall, which is equally good for speed and customer service.
My old local PO was the main one at Cadman Plaza, and it always amazed me that the main PO, servicing Brooklyn Heights, all the courts and surrounding businesses and foot traffic, usually had two or at most three clerks working. Or there would be a line 40 people long for mailing packages and they’d have a clerk working the non-existent line at the ‘stamps only’ desk. I went in to pick up some held mail at 8:30AM and was told the ONLY clerk who could help me was on break, go get a coffee and come back in half an hour.
I hated that place.
City workers are bitter and disgruntle in every area they all hate their job.
The majority are all just buying time for their “cushy” retirement crumbs in the end.
Bring back the pony express
I remember using the Wall Street post office at 73 Pine Street. I was in and out in five minutes and – shocking – the staff was courteous. Even bigger shocker is that a post office would be so efficiently run near Wall Street in Manhattan as opposed to outer burrough Brooklyn. Same unionized workforce.
Bureau of Labor Statistics data on the number of Post Office employees in NYC, from http://www.bls.gov.
Series Id: SMU3693561909191201
Not Seasonally Adjusted
State: New York
Area: New York City, NY
Supersector: Government
Industry: Postal Service
Data Type: All Employees, In Thousands
Year Annual
1990 38.0
1991 36.3
1992 34.8
1993 32.1
1994 32.0
1995 32.5
1996 32.3
1997 31.8
1998 31.3
1999 31.4
2000 30.7
2001 30.1
2002 28.9
2003 27.4
2004 25.9
2005 25.1
2006 24.4
I live in Boerum Hill & I don’t have any problems unless something needs to be signed for. I have the key box outside my front door & the USPS just leaves the package between the two doors.