Results tagged “postoffice”

The U.S. Postal Service released a revised list (PDF) of locations it is closing, due to its financial woes (it lost $7 billion in the fiscal year that ended September 30), and 16 NYC locations are listed. Seven are in the Bronx, seven are in Manhattan, and two are in Queens—full list after the jump. While it's not pretty, 53 locations were on the possible closing list in the summer.

The Botanical Station post office in the Bronx is on the chopping block, as the Postal Service faces a $7 billion deficit. The NY Times visits the establishment, one older patron saying she doesn't "know what I would do" if it shut down. The PO's landlord doesn't want to them leave either, "They always pay on time. It’s like money in the bank." The paper notes that this is just one of 15 city post offices that may be shuttered, 7 of which are in the Bronx (here's a list of 14 of them).

Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney met with the NYC postmaster to discuss the possibility of closing the Pitt Station post office as part of much-needed budget cuts. The USPS points out that Knickerbocker Station is only three-tenths of a mile away. But LES seniors point out that that can be really far for some people, as well as the fact that Knickerbocker has stairs. And old people hate stairs. [The Lo-Down]

The argument over where New York's worst post office is could go on forever, since they are all pretty much the worst, but one tipster is tossing the 9th Street Post Office of Park Slope into the hat. So angered by the slowness of the establishment, this morning one local (we have our suspicions) turned to the chalk to take out their aggressions. Now, now, let's all take a deep breath and recall when residents rallied for the now-closed Prince Street Post Office, declaring: "The Worst Post Office is Better Than No Post Office!"

The United States Postal Service's budget problems are forcing the agency to consider closing many post offices across the county. Yesterday, the Postal Regulatory Commission released a list of almost 700 locations that might need to go. The AP reports, "Some of the offices could be closed while others could have some of their functions consolidated with other offices. For example, in some cases preparing mail for delivery may be shifted from Office A to nearby Office B, but the first office might still offer such services as selling stamps and mailing parcels and letters. In other cases one of the offices might be closed."

The much-maligned yet convenient Prince Street Post Office (which later moved to Greene Street) closed last week. Of course, the location's P.O. Box customers only found out about the closing when they were greeted by the sign directing them to pick up packages at the Canal Street station.

Residents and businesses near the 27 West 60th Street post office can put off having a cow for now: The post office will stay open for another year. According to the West Side Spirit, the USPS was considering closing the location (perhaps moving it) when the lease was up at the end of the month, because "the landlord was reportedly asking for more than twice the current rent of about $400,000 month." However, both sides came to an agreement for at least a one year reprieve (details are not disclosed as this point). Rep. Jerrold Nadler said, "This is great news for the West Side. I’m very pleased that the Columbus Circle Post Office was able to successfully renegotiate its lease. This means that neighborhood residents won’t have to travel far afield to do their basic postal errands.” Nadler is also working on trying to work with the USPS on the Prince Street post office, where the lease is up in July.

Sorry, 24-hour party people in need of late-night/early-hour postal workers: The Daily News reports that the 24-hour retail window at the James A. Farley Post Office will close starting May 9. The new hours: Monday-Friday, 7 a.m.-10 p.m.; Saturday 9 a.m.-9 p.m.; and Sunday 11 a.m.-7 p.m. The Farley post office's lobby will remain open 24 hours a day, so customers can access their P.O. boxes and use the automated machines. Regarding the possible closings of Manhattan branches, USPS spokesman George Flood said discussions were ongoing and other locations for the branches were also being considered.

   

A group of residents, businesses, lawmakers and others rallied outside the Prince Street Post Office (located on Greene Street) in Soho. The U.S. Postal Service has been considering closing the branch when its lease expires in July, but the group points out, "The Worst Post Office is Better Than No Post Office!" As 66 Square Feet said, "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 it's April 14, it means people are scrambling to get their taxes mailed in time for tomorrow's deadline. A tipster tells us he went to a post office (Ansonia Station, at Columbus and 68th in Manhattan) at 7:50 a.m., 10 minutes before opening: "The facility was open, but the postal worker windows weren't opened, so we could line up. I ended up being ninth in line (two postal workers were available). By the time I left, there were 50 people in line for three postal workers." Here's the USPS's branch locator—the Farley post office on 8th Avenue, between 31st and 33rd Streets across from Penn Station, is open 24 hours.

If you're interested in spreading some holiday cheer to a needy child, consider heading to the James Farley Post Office and picking up a letter to Santa from Operation Santa Claus. The U.S. Postal Service collects letters to Santa sent from children and distributes them to people willing to be helper elves (previously, volunteer postal workers would answer the letters themselves).

Last night around 10:50 p.m., heavy smoke was reported at the landmark James A Farley Post Office on Eighth Avenue. Dozens of people were evacuated as the city's only 24-hour postal service branch was shut down so firefighters could locate the cause.

While there's video evidence Brooklyn's Kensington post office could be the worst post office in the city, Far Rockaway's post office could give it a run for the money. Representative Gregory Meeks complained to the Daily News, "There is so much incompetence and lack of supervision [there]. I'm hearing from a lot of seniors who don't get their Social Security checks on time. A lot of people aren't getting their bills."

The Friends of Moynihan Station shared a rendering of what Moynihan Station will look like, according to NY State. According to FMS, the Empire State Development Corporation has been "reluctant" to share them, but FMS thinks "looks great," though there's a lot that needs to be explained.

Less than two weeks after Gov. Spitzer publicly reaffirmed his commitment to going forward with plans to construct Moynihan Station despite a $1 billion funding shortfall, it looks like the matter may be out of his hands. The New York Times is reporting that the whole $14 billion project, which would involve building Moynihan Station at The Farley Post Office building and constructing a new Madison Square Garden on the site, is on the brink of total failure.

The fate of the Moynihan Station in the James Farley post office building remains up in the air and it's unclear whether Madison Square Garden will also relocate to the Farley building. If MSG moves, plans say the old MSG would be razed and a new train tracks would be put on top. The Municipal Arts Society's New Penn Station campaign shares a plan from students (at Columbia's Graduate School of Architecture's Historic Preservation Program) offering a different idea.

The NY Sun takes a look at the city's skybridges, and their place in our future. While some cities offer the plenty of the structures to their residents (Minneapolis, we're looking at you), they are often only found in parts of the country with extreme hot or cold temperatures. Do our humid summers and frigid winters warrant more indoor walkways?

Ooof. Talk about insulting. In today's Times, Clyde Haberman goes so far as to compare the Dolan clan to the Mario Puzo's Corleone family from his Godfather series of books. That comparison to the Dolans is clearly a slap in the face to the Corleones. Haberman says that any "enormously rich and influential business family would do as a replacement" and casts Jim Dolan, Chairman of Madison Square Garden, as "the hapless Fredo Corleone." If Jim is Fredo, where is Michael - and the kiss of death? There's gotta be some other unscrupulous families that to which the Dolans can compare (Spears family, anyone?).

Have some extra cash to spend around the holiday season? Even the littlest bit can go a long way in the over 80 year old Operation Santa program. Every year letters pile up at the James A. Farley Post Office from (mostly needy) kids writing to Santa Claus (read one of them here). Their wish lists don't make it to the North Pole, but with New Yorkers pitching in every year, it's as if they did. There's still time to pick up a letter so you can help make someone's Christmas a little more merry this year. Head to the Farley Post Office (bring an ID) located at 421 Eighth Ave today through 4pm or Monday (from 9 to 4:30pm). Note: they are currently in desperate need of people who can read Spanish.

Will Macy's give its regards to Broadway? The NY Times reports that the developers who are trying to redevelop the James Farley Post Office building into the new Moynihan Station "are in the early stage of negotiations with Macy’s" to move from the store's landmark Herald Square location to the Farley building on Eighth Avenue. Charles Bagli's article summarizes the progress of the Penn Station redevelopment and Farley-into-Moynihan Station project: It's complex, given the...

Yesterday was the city's day to honor and remember veterans of the U.S. armed forces. The 88th annual Veterans Day Parade started with the Eternal Light Monument Ceremony in Madison Square Park, followed by a parade up Fifth Avenue to 56th Street. An estimated 20,000 gathered for the parade, and there were veterans from World War II, Korean War, and the Iraq War. Mayor Bloomberg said, "You should know that 70 New Yorkers have given...

As the city and state start to get to work on West Side redevelopment, the Mayor said that one entity won't be getting tax breaks if it moves. Mayor Bloomberg was asked if Madison Square Garden would continue to get $10.9 million in tax breaks if it moves West to the Farley Post Office building (that's what a map in the draft Environmental Impact Statement notes). Bloomberg decisively said, "Not if I'm mayor they won't. Madison Square Garden isn't going to move, and there's no reason to justify that."

The person who hung a noose on the doorknob of a professor at Columbia's Teachers College the other week seems to have been a catalyst for NY metro idiots, who have been been copy-cating or otherwise emulating public displays of hateful symbols. Most recently, Parks Dept. employees were appalled to find 10" nooses wrapped around the necks of their clothes when they opened their work lockers in Queens Saturday morning.

Yesterday, state officials released the draft scope for the Moynihan Station/New Penn Station project. The actual 93-page PDF is online for the public to peruse, and, yes, the plan is to move Madison Square Garden into the James Farley Post Office building on Eighth Avenue and possibly move to U.S. Post Office's operations to the current Penn Station (we highlighted those moves). Say it with us: UGH.

The state released the draft scope for the Moynihan Station project today, and while the details have yet to be finalized, The New York Sun outlines the document's major components. Madison Square Garden will be moved into the rear of the Farley Post Office Building, which will be renamed Moynihan Station. A remade Penn Station will be renamed Moynihan East and will feature a sky-lit train hall surrounded by a million square feet of retail space.

Principal Tyona Washington of Canarsie High School opened up a piece of mail that contained a noose made out of string as well as a 2-page letter containing, per Newsday, "a common racial slur and words suggesting that a black person should not be running the school." The letter also referred to "white power" and had the signature of a white administrator, but police do not believe the letter was from that individual.

NY state officials are expected to release the draft scope for the Moynihan Station's environmental impact statement today, which the NY Sun calls the "Spitzer administration's first public display of forward progress" on the project.

The Reverend Al Sharpton, speaking out against the beating a black man in Staten Island, announced that he will organize a protest march in the next few weeks. He said, "New York is becoming worse than Louisiana. We're going to Staten Island, Jena, Washington - and we're going to bring out numbers like you've never seen before."

As the NYPD Hate Crimes unit, as well as the FBI and Justice Department, investigates the noose found outside a Columbia professor's office, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly commented about the school's cooperation. Apparently the school only turned over surveillance videos after the NYPD provided a subpoena - three days after the noose was found on Teachers College Professor Madonna Constatine's office door knob.