On the Hit List: Long Island Processing Plants

Edited 10/9/11: 5:25pm: I had some facts wrong; not all of these facilities are being studied for consolidation into the Brooklyn P&DC. Information has been revised.

Edited 5/28/2017: This entry has long merited revision, since some of my statements might have jumped the closure gun. USPS revised many of its consolidation plans well after publication of this entry. Noting that this page is cited on Wikipedia, to fact-checkers, please conduct additional research to validate more recently approved and disapproved consolidation activities. For example, as of 2017 the following facilities continue to process outgoing first-class mail from New York City and Long Island: New York, NY (Morgan Annex) and Mid-Island, NY. Brooklyn P&DC only distributes destinating mail. Queens P&DC processes packages only. The New York L&DC in Bethpage has since been renamed. And Western Nassau doesn't do too much anymore...

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For those of you who don't already know, USPS not only wants to close down its small-town and poor-neighborhood post offices; it also wants to shutter half its processing plants and make our mail substantially slower as well! Yet another brilliant idea to re-invigorate the postal service and rally the American people to its side. [End sarcasm.]

Currently, Long Island [Nassau and Suffolk County for our purposes] maintains three mail processing and/or distribution facilities, each with different functions. USPS is studying the closure or reshuffling of [read: Management would like to close] just about everything. Let's see what we've got:

1. Mid-Island Processing and Distribution Facility; Melville, NY

This is Long Island's heavy lifter. It takes care of the First-Mail cancellations and processing for about 190 post offices that serve 2.5+-million Long Islanders. Its spray-cancel reads "LONG ISLAND NY 117", though it also has a mechanical canceling machine whose '[stamp-]killer' is in the shape of Long Island itself! Mail processing operations from the Western Nassau P&DC [see below] have already been consolidated into this facility; USPS would like to shove the "Mid-Island Annex" into here as well. I don't know the exact function of that nearby location, but since its listed address is the same as the plant itself, the consolidation sounds rather trivial.

2. New York Logistical and Distribution Center; Bethpage, NY

Formerly known as Priority Mail Processing Centers (PMPCs), L&DCs expedite rapid-delivery parcels. This is a positively huge facility, and based on the photo of exterior hedges above, not one the public ever gets to see. (I DID get to see a bit more of it around the back, but so as not to piss too many postal lawyers off I won't post a photo of the giant yellow cube that is the employee/visitor entrance here.) We're talking dozens of large trucks. They'd like to shove this into the smaller Western Nassau P&DC; which is odd because the Western Nassau P&DC is... well, let's find out.

3. Western Nassau Mail Processing Facility; Garden City, NY
This facility no longer cancels mail; its purpose is to get the mail distributed to its local offices for final delivery to businesses and residences. Unlike the other facilities described in this post, this facility also maintains a retail window for customers. If this gets closed, I'm guessing that window would be gone as well. Now USPS is looking at taking this out of Nassau and shoving it all into the Mid-Island complex.


But wait, there's more! Act now and if you close three, you get one free!

4. Queens Processing and Distribution Center; College Point, Flushing, NY


[Seen from the shopping center across the street:]


All mail cancellation and processing operations were moved from Staten Island and Queens two years ago: any mail deposited anywhere within the boroughs of Brooklyn, Queens, or Staten Island gets this handy-dandy postmark that reads "TRIBORO NY 112 // BKLYN QNS STATEN ISL // [[date]]". [The name "Triboro" is mythic and arbitrary, referring to the fact that this postal District covers Queens, Brooklyn, and Staten Island -- NOT the three boroughs connected by New York City's Triborough Bridge, for the record.] The Queens P&DC currently maintains mail distribution operations for Queens offices, but even that seems likely to be relegated to Brooklyn or the Morgan Annex in Manhattan. I think it's stupid to drive mail into Queens from Manhattan. Are they all going to depend on the L.I.E.? Consolidation into Brooklyn is likely inevitable.

Bonus: The mythic Brooklyn Processing and Distribution Center; Brooklyn, NY


This location is positively huge. Or as some might say, it's ginormous. It's got tens of acres of floorspace, as well as postal District offices upstairs. It even has its own bus stop right in front of the primary employee entrance! Once again, since these photos were taken on public streets, off postal property, it's perfectly legal to take and publish them. You could just as easily see the same thing on Google Street View, here.

Annnd, USPS is thinking of consolidating the Brooklyn P&DC into the Morgan P&DC in western Manhattan. How would we get hundreds of additional mail trucks into and out of western Manhattan all day? No idea. To USPS management, the pluses of closing these processing facilities go beyond perceived cost efficiency. You see, each USPS plant has its own labor union, and in this instance they could effectively eliminate four entire union branches. So the whole procedure also serves as a convenient way of cutting the power of USPS's labor unions which would, of course, make it even easier for USPS to get its way in the future. With USPS's current plan, not only would half the country's mail processing infrastructure be eliminated, but 250 organized sets of workers could be wiped off the map. I should note that this is just my personal speculation, but I would still put money on it. Yet another depressing facet to the whole plan.

On the Hit List: Long Island, NY, Part 1

At present there are three post offices on Long Island (out of approximately 200) that are on the list for potential short-term closure. Two are stations and one is a branch, meaning that none of these post offices has a Postmaster itself. The reason I've decided to write this entry is that I've noticed that a lot of people who have found my blog are researching Bay Shore's historic Penataquit Post Office (one of said stations). I can very much envision people being attached to it, since it's such a lovely building.

Furthermore, ALL THREE mail processing facilities on Long Island are slated for potential closure, and I'll cover those in my next post.

Without further ado:

Uniondale, NY: Reckson Plaza Station post office
Reckson Plaza is a large office park located at the southwest corner of the interchange between the Meadowbrook State Parkway and Hempstead Turnpike. Its hallmark is two glass towers connected by a central atrium. And it has a post office!



The post office is located inside the atrium's front entrance:


Presently it's a one-clerk office that stays open during full business hours regardless. Ordinarily, there would be a lunch break at such a location.

Since this post office doesn't represent a distinguishable community, I suspect its days are numbered. If the postal service holds a public meeting in the evening, when the workers at this office plaza have gone home, then there will in all likelihood not be enough people to defend it.

Setauket, NY post office [a branch of East Setauket]

A beautiful, positively wonderful building that's served as the town's post office since the '40s. The inside is great, too: wood paneling, old PO boxes, the works. That would be a real shame. The closest office is East Setauket, its parent, about one mile away.

Postmark Adventures: Fire Island, NY; Part III

Now for the third of three entries about the post offices of Fire Island. [Here are the links for Parts I and II.] Part of the enjoyment of making this postal run is that I doubt there's such a high concentration of CPOs, or otherwise unique and tricky-to-reach post offices, anywhere in the country.

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Day 2 – August 31, 2010
August 31 was the last day all Fire Island post offices would be open during the summer season. It was most efficient to visit the final three offices as follows: (1) Take the Sayville—Fire Island Pines ferry in early in the morning; (2) visit the extreme, earliest-closing post office (Davis Park) first; (3) take the water taxi back to Fire Island Pines and visit that office; (4) walk to Cherry Grove, visit that CPO, and take the other Sayville ferry back.

The distance from Fire Island Pines to Davis Park is 4.5 miles, but the water taxi wasn’t running that morning. Thus, I had to start the day by walking, in 95° heat, on a bright and sunny day, 4.5 miles – on the beach. (At least it wasn’t uphill, both ways.) After 2.5 miles I came across a house-cleaner who'd just finished a job and had a boat. She took pity and piloted me the rest of the distance to Davis Park.

Davis Park’s CPO was a couple hundred feet along the main north-south road from the ferry terminal. A hand-painted wood sign with blue-and-yellow lettering adorned the front of the building, which also serves as the community's ‘free lending library’. There are filled bookshelves in the customer area of the building. Above the front door, inside, there are photographs of the prior buildings that have housed the Davis Park CPO. There are also Fire Island postcards for sale inside.

Davis Park Post Office [CPO]:

Postcards showing photos of the office:


The only official postmark was a "Patchogue, NY" cancel; I was told they'd have a Davis Park dater this year.

I bought a Pepsi at the general store across the street, refilled my canteen with water, and began the 4.5-mile trudge pack to Fire Island Pines. By the time I'd arrived at the Fire Island Pines office, a beautiful and seemingly new wooden structure with a green Post Office sign, it was just past closing time (1 pm). Fortunately a bit of pleading got me some cards canceled for my collection before they headed off for the day.

Fire Island Pines Post Office [CPO]:


The Cherry Grove CPO is closed from 12:45 to 2:45 for lunch. I opted to take my lunch at a pizza shop in Fire Island Pines.

Cherry Grove's post office is in a blue building that appeared to house residents on the upper floor. It had a couple hundred old PO boxes. I got some photos for the museum but didn't feel like staying for postmarks; it was 1:55, and after 2:00 the next ferry left at 4:00.

Cherry Grove Post Office [CPO]:


Fortunately there was some more post office time left in the day, so I stopped at Cherry Grove's Sayville parent office and met the Postmaster. He said he could either forward the requests to the CPO, or personally cancel some cards once he got the daters back for the season. True to his word, I mailed for and got the cards later.

Postmark Adventures: Fire Island, NY; Part II

It's Going Postal's 100th entry! My blog stats show the popularity of the blog increasing quite nicely over the past month; thanks to all my readers! Feel free to comment! It's always nice to see feedback.

This is a continuation of yesterday's entry; the series will finish up tomorrow.

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Leaving Saltaire...

One mile later, I found the Fair Harbor CPO shielded by trees, with one small sign directing one toward the yellow house up the boardwalk. Once again, the contractor had never seen a postmark collector before but was willing to provide cancels since I was already carrying a couple hundred from my past travels.

Fair Harbor Post Office [CPO]:


The road to Ocean Beach was long and arduous. The post office-to-post office distance is 2.2 miles, but several factors were working against general movement: (1) the “roads” between the towns on Fire Island are actually soft, deep, winding sand paths; (2) where there was pavement in Ocean Beach, there was also an inch of rain on the ground. Smart residents who needed to move about were transporting items (such as groceries) in wagons hitched to the backs of their bicycles.

Here are a couple of deer I met along the sandy path:

A standard Ocean Beach transport vehicle:


The Ocean Beach post office was in a two-story wood-shingled building along the main walk. The postmaster was very friendly and provided me with a handsome four-bar. (She knew I was coming; I’d called to ask her questions about neighboring offices two weeks prior.) I eventually ate at a place she recommended and trudged the 4.5 miles back to my car, stopping at the grand Fire Island Lighthouse back near the State Park.

Post office: Ocean Beach, NY:


Lunch at Ocean Beach; bay view and the food:



The Fire Island Lighthouse:


^ That's right, folks -- I don't just collect postmarks! I collect National Park Service stamps as well!

Next time on Going Postal: Fire Island, Day 2! Visiting Davis Park, Fire Island Pines, and Cherry Grove.

Postmark Adventures: Fire Island, NY; Part I

For my 99th, 100th, and 101st posts, I thought I'd present to the general public my grand tale of exploring the post offices of Long Island's Fire Island. This was a three-page article published in the Post Mark Collectors Club (PMCC) Bulletin July 2011. Here I'll present more visuals, including photos of the offices and of the island itself.

[Reference: A CPO – Community Post Office – is a post office that is run under contract, usually in a store, and which comprises the sole postal operations for a small town. All CPOs are technically CPUs (Contract Postal Units), but not all CPUs are CPOs. A CPO's parent office is the independent U.S. Post Office that is responsible for, and lends administrative support to, the CPO.]

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Overview
I’ve visited as many as 28 post offices in one day. That includes driving to each office, taking photographs, waiting in line, negotiating / chatting with clerks, and obtaining each postmark. Visiting the seven post offices on Fire Island, however, took two [mostly-]full days.

Part of the postmarking difficulty is that no cars are allowed on the island, except for critical maintenance vehicles. For intra-town trips, the locals’ primary mode of transportation, aside from their legs, is the bicycle. Many houses sport multiple-bike racks in place of garages! A water taxi operates between Fire Island towns; fares range from $7 to $30. I opted to walk.

Ferries are crucial to the transport of people, goods, and mail to and from Fire Island. (And as such, every Fire Island post office is located by its town’s ferry terminal.) Ferries operate from Bay Shore [link to a Going Postal entry about Bay Shore and its Pantatquit Station here], Sayville, or Patchogue; Fire Island’s six CPOs are assigned to the town whose ferry services that CPO. Bay Shore is the parent office of the Kismet, Saltaire, and Fair Harbor CPOs; Sayville is in charge of Cherry Grove and Fire Island Pines; and Davis Park is assigned to Patchogue.

Here is a map of said ferries that operate to and from Fire Island:


(The map is pretty much to scale; within each axis, anyway.)

Ocean Beach is the only independent post office on Fire Island, and it is also the only one that operates all year. Fire Island boasts thousands of summer residents and annual visitors, though only 500 people live on the island year-round. The CPOs operate only during the summer and most close prior to Labor Day, though Cherry Grove’s operates through mid-October.

Most of the CPOs are open for three hours a day, and two operate only Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. With August nearing its close, I chose to attempt all seven post offices on Tuesday the 24th – leaving one more week to finish the rest, if necessary. (Which it was.)

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Day 1: August 24, 2010:
Parking was free at Robert Moses State Park that morning since it was raining. The 1.6-mile walk to the Kismet post office took 35 minutes and I arrived 20 minutes after opening. Two people couldn’t tell me where the post office was, but I found it in the only store in town (even though there was no signage). There was no official postal counter – just a giant sack up front for outgoing mail. The manager took care of my cards for me in the back, at a table behind the deli counter.

Kismet Post Office [CPO]:


Saltaire is adjacent to Kismet, and their post offices are separated by about 1,500 feet apart spatially. But as the only road that connects the towns follows the southern shore of the island, actual walking distance is nearly a mile.

The roads (rather, walks) in Saltaire are actually raised boardwalk, which lends the town a wonderful and unique character. Just past the town playground and park, the post office shares a building with the Village Hall and Courthouse. I arrived just after opening, and the contractor was happy to cancel my cards and pose for a photo with the post office sign.

Saltaire Post Office [CPO]:


Here are a couple of other scenes from Saltaire:


I swear it's got to be one of the fittest communities in America, given how much exercise these folks get.

To be continued...

2,000 Post Offices

Back in November I documented my 1,500th post office visited in this GP entry.

500 post offices later I've nearly finished with Suffolk County, and added a lot in New Jersey. Over 7 months, that's a bit more than 2.3 post offices visited per day, or a rate of 840 post offices visited per year.

On Tuesday I visited 24 post offices, bringing my count to 2,004. I visited all post offices on the North Fork of Long Island and several from Long Island's south shore. The map below shows the string I covered, including the two offices of Shelter Island:



During the day I visited several amazing, small offices that you would not expect to find on Long Island, and I'll document them in future posts.

The official 2,000th post office was that of Mastic Beach, a nice office featuring a full-out "[Town Name], L.I., N.Y." sign, on blue trim, atop white brick. Can anyone else think of places besides those on Long Island which feature a clarifying location before the state abbreviation?

A(n Almost) Nice Touch: Bay Shore, NY

I suppose it's best to start with what once WAS the Bay Shore Main Post Office, now known as Bay Shore's Penataquit Station. Built by the Treasury Department during the '30s, it's a WPA post office, complete with a piece of commissioned relief sculpture and a beautiful wooden counter area with a great sign above that says "Bay Shore". (The font is quite unique and lovely.)



Believe it or not there's a Wikipedia page devoted to the Bay Shore Post Office, though it's a mistake to still call it that. As the page will attest, the post office was one of many WPA facilities to be added to the National Register of Historic Places, in 1988.

As the town expanded, the post office needed more room to operate, and primary operations were moved to the outskirts of the town in the '60s (or, what appears to be the '60s based on the architecture of the building, shown below). It's quite a nice building: white brick with light blue accents.

Thus, the "original" [historic] Bay Shore post office is now its downtown Penataquit Station.

The best part of the new office, in the author's opinion, is this wonderful mosaic featuring the Post Office Department logo:

Well, almost. It WAS a beautiful mosaic with the old logo; however it now features a bolted Sonic Eagle [new USPS logo] on top of it. Some people have no sense of posterity:

Found: A Postal Drive-Through

I finally found something for which I had been looking for a long time: an active drive-through stamp window at a post office. I had seen several instances before in which the window was no longer in use (notably in Fairfield, OH and a couple of sites in New Hampshire); but this is the first time I've documented such a site in action.

(Actually, that's not entirely true: I believe Laconia, NH's Lakeport Station does possess an active window; but I wasn't in the habit of documenting all the offices I visited at the time.)

I visited this, the Ridge, NY post office during a recent postal run in which I postally covered a large part of northern and central Long Island. In this photo, the pickup at the left side of the building is at the window, and the driver is purchasing stamps.

Of General Interest; Nassau County

A note to puzzlers: This Sunday's (March 13) New York Times Magazine crossword is of interest to postal employees and philatelists alike: the title is "Reverend Spooner, U.S.P.S.", with the theme being postal-themed spoonerisms:

"[Reverend Spooner] is remembered for a peculiar speech error he was wont to make: the transposition of the initial letters (sounds) of adjoining words, often with humorous results."

For example: 'Climb down' and 'dime clown' are spoonerisms.

One example of a postal-themed spoonerism might be (but isn't, in the puzzle) 'postmarks' and 'most parks'. Perhaps I'll post the theme clues and answers another time, but I wouldn't want to spoil the surprise now if anyone's interested in working on the puzzle now.

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In other news, I completed a personal milestone this Saturday, having now visited and obtained the postmark each of the ~85 post offices in Nassau County (Long Island). The final office? Farmingdale's South Farmingdale Branch, pictured here:

P.S. 50 posts!

1,500 Post Offices

It took about 24 hours of work spanning six days, but I recently made an Excel spreadsheet documenting all the post offices I've ever visited. Including experience notes! (Such as: beautiful office; friendly/nasty Postmaster/clerk; exceptional postmark; arrived just before closing; etc.)

For the most part it was easy to keep track of where I've been, because I've taken photographs of most post offices I've visited (including all since late 2009); and the postmarks in my collection tell me what day I visited any office!

There is the issue of "postmark prehistory", however: what post offices did I visit in my younger years? My father took us [mom and I] to various offices while we were on vacation. My threshold for visiting is thus: I explicitly recall visiting a particular office (with my memory possibly jolted by a postmark I see in our boxes); or I had an interaction with the facility once I started venturing out on my own. That is, I took a photograph of the facility or obtained the postmark (or left a note and materials if it was closed, requesting such); or both.

Every post office I've visited since 2008 is explicitly documented, though it's possible I will be adding more office visits from my younger years. Nonetheless, for the time being I've established the 1,500^th post office that I've visited: Atlantic Beach, New York, at the southeast corner of Nassau County.

(If I remember more, 1,500 could migrate to Long Beach, NY, or Island Park; Oceanside; or other offices I visited on Friday the 19th. But let's stick with this.)

The Atlantic Beach post office is, unfortunately, characterless in terms of signage; but it did have a nice four-bar (one of about four I've seen on Long Island) and a black dater with "New York" written out. Class act!

This is the Atlantic Beach Post Office:


Perhaps the most photogenic office on my Nov. 19^th "run" was that in Freeport, NY: a beautiful WPA (Depression-era) office complete with vertical murals inside. I took this photo before sunset, and the light struck the façade beautifully:


Unfortunately, that afternoon I also experienced two troublesome offices in terms of documenting their murals for the PMCC Museum. One Postmaster claimed that the authority to allow picture-taking was stripped from him "after 9/11" -- which is false. He insisted that I get written permission from the Long Island District office (which I then got later that afternoon). So, if I'm ever again in the area for some reason I can go back and take a photo. Another insisted I schedule an appointment so I wouldn't interfere with/get customers in my photograph. Which is a legitimate thing to stipulate, though it would be an absolute pain in the butt because that's a 45-minute drive from where I live.

Fortunately, after discussing this for a while at that second office, the customer line whittled away and I was allowed to take photos -- once I gave my driver's license to the supervisor, who then wrote down my license number and held onto it while I took my photos, until I let him inspect every photograph I took of the murals inside the office. Oy.

So once again, from my experiences I must declare the New York metropolitan area to be the least conducive to collectors in the country. Although there are competent people at higher levels in each of the District offices, where it really counts.

Hunting for murals

So: I was recently questioned by a custodian, outside the Huntington, NY post office. Apparently a postal supervisor had 'caught' me taking this photo of the building for my collection, and considered me a possible security issue or similar nonsense. And so he sent an emissary to tap on my car window and question me when I got back into my car.

(It's entirely legal to take photographs of whatever you please while on public property, for the record. Anyone who says it's "illegal to take a photo of a post office, because it's 'federal property'," is woefully misinformed. Can you say "Google Street View"?)


I happened to think the office was nice, since it was reminiscent of many offices from the early 1900s. Or even the 1930s, during which the government hired artists through its WPA program to paint murals, many of which you can see to this day! Unfortunately, USPS doesn't generally appreciate people taking photographs in the lobbies of their post offices, for security, copyright, and customer privacy reasons. Doing so requires the permission of the facility head (Postmaster, Station Manager, etc.).

In any case, the building really featured a faux front. But, as it turned out I left my map inside the office. So when I re-entered the building that supervisor greeted me and, as he'd heard from his custodian that I'm interested in murals, proceeded to tell me the post office's former location, which still has its WPA mural intact.

That was nice of him.

Fortunately the insurance company that now owns the building had no issue with my documenting the mural for my photo collection, and so I feel no guilt reproducing it here. First, the old building with its present look. Then, the mural inside. It's gorgeous!, though it could use some restorative care: