2010 Postal Summary

The stats are in:

This year I visited 738 [new] post offices, bringing my grand total up to 1,561. Even though the following numbers add up to 736. Oh well. Here are my post office visits by states:

New York: 186
Focus/foci: New York metro, including Westchester and Nassau counties

Ohio: 124
Northern Ohio, near I-80; Cincinnati

Massachusetts: 101
Boston metro

Hawai'i: 80
O'ahu and the Big Island

Pennsylvania: 59
Near I-80; Philadelphia

New Hampshire: 40
South, along I-93; the coast

Oregon: 40
Salem and Portland

New Jersey: 36
Near I-80; near Route 1

Maryland: 26
Baltimore, & -D.C. corridor; Silver Spring

Connecticut: 14
Hartford; New London for the annual PMCC Convention

Kentucky: 11
Cincinnati metro

Maine: 7
Southern tip

D.C.: 6
Northern stations; The Capitol

Rhode Island: 1
Block Island

I'll have a Strawberry-Banana, and Send this Certified.

I was able to visit the Chinoe CPU of Lexington Kentucky in September 2009. It's since been discontinued. Believe it or not, it was in the back of a smoothie store!



Have you ever heard of such a thing before? .. Me neither... Maybe that's why it was discontinued.

Updates on the USPS 'Hit List'

For those who need it: The Postal Regulatory Commission posted post office branches and stations that USPS would like to close. Here is the list, in .pdf format. It has not been revised for a long time, but many of these offices either have or will shortly be closing.

Here are some offices on the list known to have already been discontinued:
• Long Island City, NY: Parcel Post Annex
• New York, NY: Tudor City Station
• Omaha, NE: Station B
• Fort Smith, AR: South Fort Smith Station
• Detroit, MI: Linwood Station -- Dec. 3, 2010

Here are some more from the list that will be closing soon:
• Louisville, KY: Plainview Station -- Feb. 18, 2011
• Atlanta, GA: Hartsfield Airport Postal Store -- Jan. 31, 2011
• Omaha, NE: Station C -- Jan. 14, 2011
• Akron, OH: Maple Valley Station -- Feb. 19, 2011
• Wayne, MI: Westland Mall -- Feb. 4, 2011
• Detroit, MI: Penobscot Station -- Jan. 3, 2011
• Syracuse, NY: Elmwood Station -- Jan. 28, 2011
• Kansas City, Kansas: Packers Station -- January 22, 2010
• Louisville, KY: Beechmont Station -- Jan. 4, 2011

The only post office of the 18 I've visited on this list that is confirmed to be closing (aside from those in Boston), is in Mansfield, Ohio: the Lincoln Retail Branch. It is to close February 11, 2011.

In memoriam: Faneuil Hall Post Office

The Boston, MA: Faneuil Hall [Station] post office has been discontinued. Given how historic the site was and how frequently the office was used, I think that's a terrible idea.

I snapped this photo of the office in July, before it closed. Wasn't it cute?:

A Tale of Two Antlers

On my 2008 cross-country road trip, I couldn't decide how best to get from Minneapolis to Yellowstone. So I took what was obviously the most straightforward route, jutting north 250 miles up to Winnipeg, crossing Manitoba and tipping into Saskatchewan (collecting some Canadian postmarks along the way -- and let me tell you, they were the FRIENDLIEST about it -- every single office), and diving south back to Bismarck, to the Black Hills of South Dakota, and eventually over to Yellowstone.

My AAA/CAA map showed me a cute little pairing -- a town in Saskatchewan and a town (60 miles south) in North Dakota called Antler. So, I stopped at both and got each postmark.

Here's a map:

View Larger
The Antler, SK office was in the back of a woman's house, and had no signage except for hours in the window. It was fantastic!

As all the roads in Saskatchewan were gravel, I headed back into Manitoba for the crossover back to the States. After all, it was the middle of nowhere, how long could it take to get back into the country?

As it turns out, A LONG TIME. Apparently it's uncommon to see solo 21-year-old males from New York City crossing back into the country in the middle of absolute nowhere (this is what it looks like from the Manitoba side -- note how Google Street View turns off near the security-sensitive border crossing), and so they took the liberty of inspecting every single item in my car over 45 minutes. To their credit, they packed my trunk more nicely than I'd had it prior!

It's a good thing they shut my car engine off, or it would've run out of gas. (It was more expensive in Canada, so I saved up to buy back in the States.) Finally, a couple of miles down the road was the town of Antler, ND -- population 55 (and gas $3.99⁹). It featured a Standard Oil gas station and, of course, the Antler post office. Shannon, the Officer-in-Charge, was getting promoted to Postmaster the next day, and to celebrate I took her photo in front of the office. Here's a photo I took from the gas station (with the PO in the background):

In training...

As a follow-up on my prior post about Philadelphia, allow me to present post offices inside train stations. Two of them, in Philadelphia, are in major transit hubs, and when I visited them, were being well used:

• 
• 
• 

Philadelphia: 30^th Street Station.

In Philadelphia, the 30^th Street Station is the major Amtrak hub, though it also serves the SEPTA [Metro Philadelphia] system. Penn Center is a major subway station in downtown Philadelphia.

Below, two post offices in train stations that effectively constitute the centers of their respective towns.

• 
• 

Mill Neck, NY train station and post office.

Philadelphia

I just got back from a mini trip to Philadelphia, wherein I visited 21 offices. I have time just for a short entry:

The Philadelphia Main Post Office has moved, from across the street from the 30th Street Train Station (where there's a post office station, incidentally), kitty corner a couple of blocks away. The windows and carriers are in the new building, while the district offices and processing have been moved to another facility, further away. The old post office (below) is now being renovated for use by the IRS.



Here's a view of the new MPO:


One nice thing is that two post offices in Philadelphia are located INSIDE large train stations -- namely the 30th Street Station and Penn Center. I think that's a great idea that should be applied more frequently.

Country Music Country

Think of Nashville's Acklen Station as the Katz's Delicatessen of the postal world. I opt to post internal photos of this office because many people are allowed to take photos inside (you'll soon see why), and there have been reviews (including photos) have been posted of it before. When's the last time you've seen a post office reviewed on Yelp? The exterior is nothing to write home about:

(And that doesn't even count as a PMCC Museum-quality photo, since it includes just the sign, as opposed to the full exterior.)

But, as we are near the heart of country music, witness hundreds of signed 8x10s of virtually any country music star you can think of! We happen to be talking big names, too.


And: they're all signed to the Acklen post office.


So next time you're in Nashville take in a concert, and see the stars at the Acklen post office!