Washouts: Many post offices shuttered by storms in 2011 never reopened

Not all is well in Endwell

The post offices along the Susquehanna River in the Southern Tier of New York did not fare well in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Lee.

Endwell, New York: population 11,000
Post office established: 1921.
Suspended due to damage: Sept. 13, 2011.
Current status: closed.

Tioga Center, New York
Post office established: 1893.
Suspended due to damage: Sept. 13, 2011.
Current status: closed.

Barton, New York
Post office established: 1827.
Suspended due to damage: Sept. 13, 2011.
Current status: closed.

Further upstate, Fort Hunter did little better.

First post office established: 1827.
Second post office established: 1868.
Suspended due to damage: Sept. 13, 2011.
Current status: closed.



I've visited several of these offices post-suspension. In the case of Endwell and Tioga Center, mail collection points were removed but signage was still intact well after the fact. Above, the Endwell branch post office one year after suspension. Below, Tioga Center nearly four years afterward. In next-door Barton (below that), the site was vacant as the building was destroyed entirely.





Just a couple of weeks prior to Tropical Storm Lee, Hurricane Irene battered parts of the Northeast, with several offices closing Aug. 28, 2011. In Milltown, New Jersey, the post office operated out of a Mobile Postal Unit adjacent to the flooded-out building until it reopened in early 2013. Wayne, New Jersey (pop. 55,000), on the other hand, has been operating without its main postal facility for six years. Nearby Hanover Township (pop. 14,000) expected the post office in Whippany to reopen not long after the storm; that has been anything but the case.

After years of delay, Hanover Township officials effectively gave up. In 2012 the Hanover Eagle reported that USPS's Northern New Jersey District "and the Northeast Area Facilities Services Office are reviewing all options regarding the Whippany Post Office retail function, including repairs, relocation or discontinuance." Frustrations mounted as USPS refused to commit to the reopening of the Whippany facility, despite the fact that its lease was renewed for $70,000 a year, several months after the storm shuttered operations. In 2016, five years after Hurricane Irene, the "progress" Whippany residents could claim included a "new mail collection box at Town Hall in the township," and "an email address for the post office branch dealing with complaints such as lost mail, late mail and other related mail service issues"; village mail, now delivered out of nearby Morristown, has been routinely delayed. Meanwhile the lease for the Whippany post office finally expired February of this year.


Whippany, NJ post office, May 2011

In Vermont, the West Hartland post office, also flooded out due to Hurricane Irene, never reopened. 2012's Hurricane Sandy left Sea Bright, New Jersey, without a post office.

As of this last month, the communities of Endwell, Tioga Center, Barton, Fort Hunter, Whippany, West Hartland, and Sun Bright no longer need worry where USPS stands and whether or not thir post offices will return. Instead of keeping the communities in a state of perpetual suspense, the Postal Service has formally discontinued each of those post offices, and announced those closures in the recent August 17 Postal Bulletin. In fact, USPS formally announced the discontinuance of 304 post offices in this Bulletin.

USPS had stopped short of outright discontinuing post offices for a couple of years, due to in large to the political backlash surrounding the Postal Service's proposal to shutter 3,700 post offices back in 2011. Instead it had been keeping facilities in a state of "emergency suspension," a status not supposed to keep post offices in a state of indefinite limbo. In response to pressure from the Postal Regulatory Commission, USPS has been studying each of the 600+ post offices suspended as of the end of its last fiscal year for formal discontinuance or possible reopening. (The process skews VERY much toward discontinuance.) An analysis of these operations shows 73 post offices listed as suspended, like those above, due to "damage."

Let's hope this pattern of extended suspensions leading to delayed discontinuance does not continue with the advent of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma.

Topaz

I had difficulty finding the Topaz, California post office last month despite knowing its address. As it turns out the facility for this population-50 community has been suspended. Initiated about a year ago, the "temporarily" suspension (as per USPS News Release) appears permanent as the building has been formally vacated. Postal operations have been relocated to Coleville, three miles south on U.S. 395.

Both communities are located just inside the California border from Nevada, one hour south of Nevada capital Carson City. I enjoyed exploring the entire area a few weeks back while in Reno for the Post Mark Collectors Club (PMCC) Convention.

Topaz provides yet another illustration of the richness of the PMCC's Post Office Photo collection. You can see the facility in 1988 and 2014, with the roof in the latter suggesting structural decay. USPS cited structural issues as the reason for closure. You can also see that an antique wall-mounted collection box was replaced during those years, and the sign was moved (and, if you look closely, repainted). Both images were taken by Postlandia friend John Gallagher. Finally, we show here the building as appears today.

Topaz, CA post office (1988, 2014):



2017:


The saddest part about this effective closure is the pride the community seemingly took in its post office. The sign, repainted multiple times, proudly declared "Est. 1885". Unless the post office reopens, it will have lived to the ripe old age of 131.

Reading All About It—Post Office Returns to Kansas Town After Four Years

(Updated Sept. 12, 2015: Added a new photo, modest update, and link to image of destroyed post office from 2011.)

Four years ago the 200-plus-person community of Reading, Kansas was devastated. On May 21, 2011, a tornado struck the community, killing one, flattening dozens of homes, and taking with it most of the village's business district, including the post office. (An image of the aftermath, taken by Jim Saueressig, can be found here.) USPS operations in Reading were immediately suspended; worse, the cessation of services was unlikely to be purely temporary. Some veteran readers of this blog might recall that the Postal Service was considering the closure of 3,700 [mostly rural] post offices, and Reading faced the outright discontinuance of its post office.

Reading is located in Lyon County, Kansas, about an hour's drive south-southwest of Topeka and 25 minutes northeast of Emporia. Here's a map. Note not only the location of Reading but also that of Lebo. Lebo is the site of the nearest post office to Reading.



Reading's postal operations had been relocated to Lebo after the tornado, and to reach it Reading residents had to undertake a 26-mile, 40-minute round-trip drive. At the end of 2011 the change was likely to be permanent. Imagine needing to take to the road for nearly an hour to purchase some stamps or access your mail! Reading residents had the option of picking up their mail at P.O. Boxes in Lebo or installing their own mailboxes to receive mail delivery service by rural carrier. (Note: Reading's rural carriers were also moved to, and continue to operate from, Lebo.)

Topeka's Capital-Journal newspaper has been covering the story for four years, and by mid-2011 the story was bleak. The town's post office had been in operation since the community's founding in 1870, and the story was likely to end right there. The tornado took with it two rich pieces of Reading's heritage: the post office and the historic 1915 building that had most recently housed it. Here is a photo of the Reading post office by John Gallagher taken in 2001, and part of the PMCC's massive Online Post Office Photo Collection:



Residents of Reading refused to give up their fight to save the post office, and in Sept. 2011 the Capital-Journal reported that the USPS's formal discontinuance survey of the Reading post office had been suspended, "due to the unwavering efforts of Sen. Jerry Moran and Sen. Pat Roberts, along with all of the other folks who have written, called and emailed" in their efforts to save the Reading post office.

After some (presumably) bureaucratic stagnation the Capital-Journal reported in 2014 that Postal Service officially stated its intention to reopen the post office in Reading. A new, small site (merely 700 square feet in area) was sought at which to open a new postal facility.

The decision was made to site the new post office at the community's old town hall. The building is located just across the street from the former post office building, which has since been demolished. A 2009 Google Street View photo shows the two facilities, both located along 1st Street; in the view shown below the former post office (1915 building) can be seen at the left while the then-future site of the post office can be seen across the street (at right).



The results of the efforts on behalf of both the community and the USPS have since borne fruit: the new Reading post office reopened in June at the old town hall. According to the (who else?) Capital-Journal "a USPS construction crew has renovated the building, installing new heating and air-conditioning systems, upgrading the bathroom to meet USPS standards and erecting a new flag pole and lighted post office sign." The improvements at the front of the building also include the addition of new steps, handicapped-accessible ramp, and attendant railings. The building has been freshly painted in an elegant blue-and-white scheme that accentuates the building's windows and door; they reflect the Sonic Eagle sign above the door. Even the aforementioned railings fit the color scheme! During the first month or two of operation the location's primary downside was the lack of signage identifying the actual name of the community. Demonstrated by the first photo below, it appeared that once again a community's local identity was superseded by the Postal Service's branding initiatives. (It's a trend the author does not care for at all.) In that sense, while the building is clean and beautiful, its standardized design had been entirely devoid of any character that would actually make the new post office the community's own.

Our friend Steve Bahnsen drove out to Reading to see the new post office for himself. This photo was taken in July. Steve reports that the post office reopened Monday, June 29, 2015.



(Update, 9/12/15:) Jordan McAlister, a road trip warrior from the Midwest and friend of GP, visited the Reading P.O. on Sept. 7 after reading this very article, and his photo shows the new stenciled signage in the post office's front window. It's in a rather odd font, but at least it's authentic! Jordan's original photo can be found here.


The new post office is located at 413 1st Street. USPS's Locations tool states that the hours for the post office are 9:30 to 1:30 M-F with two morning hours (9:30 to 11:30) on Saturdays. The facility is accessible 24 hours a day so that residents can access their P.O. Box mail any time they choose. The post office is a RMPO (Remotely-Managed Post Office) as per POStPlan.

Astoria Story: Queens Post Office Reopens After Two-Year Absence

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Information cards were mailed to local residents informing them of the Astoria post office's grand re-opening at its new location. Posing in the photo is recently retired Postmaster Michael Menasche, who spearheaded the relocation effort.

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Ah, Astoria. Remember All in the Family? Astoria was the setting for the show. Astoria is a community in Queens with a rich history and about 150,000 residents—about the same size as Eugene, Oregon and Alexandria, Virginia. The community is undergoing rapid redevelopment with an influx of younger residents. Land along the East River is hot these days, and property values throughout many parts of Long Island City and Astoria have been increasing. Hold that thought.

For your reference, here is a map of the area, with convenient markers denoting post offices.



For years the Astoria post office resided at 27-40 21st St.:


Remember that thing about increasing land values? Compare the old post office building to its surroundings. See the taller structures around it? The site's owner preferred to have the site redeveloped instead of renewing the Postal Service's lease, and so the old Astoria post office closed in mid-2012.

Today the new Astoria Station post office held a reopening ribbon-cutting ceremony with local postal officials and U.S. Representative Carolyn Maloney of New York's 12th Congressional District. The new post office is located at 30-11 21st Street, three blocks south of its former location.

Here is a photo of the new office:


Inside, the post office maintains the Postal Service's new design standard, which features vibrant blue countertops atop faux wood frames. At the Astoria post office there are two clerk window stations. The P.O. Box area is to the left.



Frank Calabrese, USPS Triboro District Manager told GP that postal officials never considered formally discontinuing the Astoria Station after its suspension in 2012. Speaking at the ceremony, he declared that he was thrilled to inaugurate this new "state-of-the-art facility." After the Astoria Station's closure in 2012, Astoria 20 carrier routes had been based out of Long Island City's main post office, two miles south. Manager of Post Office Operations John Tanna was on-hand and was also glad to see the Astoria Station reopened, noting in conversation that having carriers stationed back in the neighborhood is "much more efficient."

Congresswoman Maloney spoke eloquently about the importance of post offices in their communities. In an interview with local news channel NY1 she stated that "the community absolutely loves its post office. We're going to be here to support it." She praised the new location, saying "it's a beautiful space [in] an important neighborhood." Adding that most New Yorkers "don't drive; we use mass transit or we walk," she declared that the Astoria post office is vital to this quickly growing neighborhood, adding that "reopening this post office is truly a community celebration." Personally, she noted, "It's wonderful to get a piece of mail."

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USPS Triboro District Manager Frank Calebrese and U.S. Representative Carolyn Maloney discuss postal matters prior to the ribbon-cutting at the Astoria post office, June 9, 2014.

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All hands on deck at the Astoria post office ribbon-cutting.

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U.S. Representative Carolyn Maloney interviews with NY1 after the ribbon-cutting.

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The Congresswoman also noted that the [Queens] Plaza post office was losing its lease in a manner similar to that of the old Astoria Station, vowing to work with the Postal Service and the community to "save the Plaza post office" and relocate its operations. She invited public input regarding leads on a new location.

Also on-hand were Station Manager Eddie Galdamez, who expressed pride in his new domain and attentively assisted customers before they even arrived at the retail window; and recently instated Officer-in-Charge for Long Island City, Scott Farrar.

Interestingly enough, USPS's lease for the new site had been signed for some time and the location was fully functional back in January. Unfortunately, New York City's Department of Transportation held up the formal recommissioning of the post office; you see, with all the (20+) carriers stationed at this location, trucks need to be able to pull up, load and unload mail without double-parking and obstructing a major local thoroughfare. There's no room for parking lots here. In a dense setting such as New York you often need signage to reserve such parking spots for postal vehicles. New York's DOT took more than four months to install the appropriate signage.



Better late than never!

P.S. What's going on at the former post office site now? This:

Man, Oh Amana: Post Offices of the Colonies

Edit—May 12, 2013: The Middle [Amana] post office has since reopened. The below content will remain as written on May 5, 2013.

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The "lease dispute" strikes again, and according to KCRG-TV out of Cedar Rapids another small-town office bites USPS's emergency suspension dust. The victim this time: Middle, Iowa, also known as Middle Amana. If Amana sounds like the name on your refrigerator, that's because that now-Whirlpool subsidiary began manufacturing coolers in this very town in 1934. But the seven villages that comprise the Amana Colonies have a history that long predates electricity. The villages were founded by immigrant members of the Community of True Inspiration religious sect, who fled Germany in search of religious freedom.

These colonies were called by some "utopian experiments", and they were in fact communal, with "all property was held in common". (The Amana Heritage Society has further details.) The town of ["main"] Amana was settled in 1855, with the surrounding six villages established within eight years.

The Amana Colonies are located in eastern Iowa, about halfway between Des Moines and the Quad Cities and a tad north. Cedar Rapids and Iowa city each lie about 25 miles away, to the northeast and ESE, respectively. The seven villages are Amana, Middle [Amana], High Amana, West [Amana], South Amana, East Amana, and Homestead.

Here's a map presenting the landscape:


Of the seven towns in the Amana colonies, six (all but East Amana) have possessed a post office. With the suspension of the Middle post office, that leaves the colonies at two operating post offices: Amana and South Amana.

Photos from 2012 are my own; prior photos come courtesy the Post Mark Collectors Club (PMCC) Museum post office photograph collection — in physical form, that is.

A post office has been operating in Middle since Jan. 14, 1933, and it has been at its present location for most of that time. USPS's Leased Facilities Report sheds light on some of the history of the Middle Amana post office and the terms of its lease. The present site has been occupied since April 1948; the site was likely moved in tandem with Carl Hergert's being named Acting Postmaster that February. (Research shows that Mr. Hergert, a New Year's birthday boy, was 29 years old at the time he became Postmaster; he died in 2003 at the age of 84.) Maintenance is conducted by the landlord (the Amana Society), which cuts down on USPS's operating expenses at this location. The terms for the five-year lease ending April 30, 2013 provided for a 523-square foot site leased for $2,520 a year.

Let's see what we're looking at!

Middle [Amana], IA post office, June 2003 (by J. Gallagher)


Middle [Amana], IA post office, Oct. 2012


A comparison of the photos (including this one, at Iowa Backroads) suggests that a new sign was installed between 2003 and 2010. You can read more about a previous closure scare in 1995 at that link as well.

Under USPS's POStPlan the operating costs at the Middle post office were slated to decrease anyway once POStPlan was implemented at the office by next summer; a minimum-wage Postmaster Relief would have been hired to operate the facility for four hours a day.

Additional commentary is available at Save The Post Office, here.

Next up in our Amana postal tour is the town of Homestead, the last town to join the Colonies, in 1861. The post office predates even that development, having been established Aug. 16, 1852. The post office here, too, was suspended, Nov. 28, 2011. Until its suspension the post office was at the same site since 1913. Iowa Backroads discovered this photo, from the Amana Heritage Society Collection, showing the post office in 1919. Physically, IB notes, the building had changed in several ways: "a ramp has been added added, chimneys removed, and supports now prop up the west wall of the building."

Homestead, IA post office, June 2003 (by J. Gallagher)


I came across the site in 2012, and though the sign had been removed the building was clearly the site of a former post office.

Homestead, IA post office site, Oct. 2012


The South Amana post office was established Jun. 19, 1874 and is now one of the two that continues to operate in the Amana colonies. It is scheduled to be reduced to a two-hour office as part of POStPlan. (Full information regarding hours reduction in Iowa can be found at Iowa Backroads, here.)

South Amana, IA post office, Sept. 1989 (by M. Anderson)


A new sign has since been installed.

South Amana, IA post office, Oct. 2012


The post office has been at its present site since June 1952; its present lease lasts until 2015, is for $5,040 a year, and is also held by the Amana Society. (Keep your fingers crossed.)

Amana's post office, by far the biggest in the Colonies, was established Sept. 3, 1884 and is not slated to incur any cuts as part of POStPlan. The post office has been at its present site since Feb. 1972. Its current lease, also with the Amana Society, costs the Postal Service $14,400 per year and lasts until 2016.

Amana, IA post office, Jun. 2003 (by J. Gallagher)


A comparison with a more recent photo reveals substantial landscaping changes at the building's front entrance.

Amana, IA post office, Oct. 2012


The post office in West [Amana] was established Feb. 28, 1902 and was discontinued March 1991.

Amana, IA post office, Mar. 1990 (by M. Anderson)


The post office in High [Amana] was established Apr. 6, 1901 and was discontinued Feb. 29, 1968. We do not have a photograph of this operation available.

They Closed Anyway: Pennsylvania RAOI

During the summer and fall of 2011 I spent several weekends photographing myriads of post offices in rural Pennsylvania, with the fear that many might close. There was a good chance 200 Pennsylvania post offices would close by the end of 2011, courtesy USPS's ill-fated Retail Access Optimization Initiative (RAOI), which targeted 3,700 operations nationwide for closure. While RAOI was abandoned and replaced with the hours-reducing POStPlan last year, several threatened post offices in western Pennsylvania closed regardless due to emergency suspensions.

The suspended offices of Denbo and Lake Geneva, in the southwest corner of the state, lie along the Monongahela River, which flows north to merge with the Allegheny in Pittsburgh and form the Ohio. The post offices of New Geneva and Lake Lynn, lie just seven miles apart. The latter is within a mile's drive of West Virginia.

All of these post offices represent a vanishing facet of the American rural landscape.

Here's a map of the towns in question:


Vowinckel lies just beyond the southernmost reaches of the 500,000-acre Allegheny National Forest and 20 miles NNE of the nearest city, Clarion. The area is rather remote and the community is unincorporated, although the census placed its population at 139. There has been a post office in Vownickel since the 1880s, and in its latest iteration the office lay in an addition to a home. I photographed the building in 2009, just before the retirement of Vowinckel's last Postmaster: Perry W. McAfoose served from 1993 to 2009; two Officers-on-Charge were appointed before the operation was suspended October 7, 2011.

Vowinckel, PA post office:


Denbo, PA post office:


Admittedly, this post office was difficult to find. Main Street in Denbo juts off local Route 88 with no signage, makes an unexpected turn across some train tracks, and consists of a long cluster of houses whose addresses I don't recall seeing. The population of unincorporated Denbo is unavailable since the Census does not even define the community. I found the worn building alongside a dusty 'parking lot' with what appeared to be a porch supported by cinder blocks. (In other words, "awesome.")

The nearest post offices lie four miles in either direction. Denbo's post office was suspended Nov. 10, 2011.

New Geneva, PA lies just north of The National Park Service's Friendship Hill National Historic Site. Friendship Hill and New Geneva were first established in the late 1700s by Geneva-born Albert Gallatin, who became U.S. Senator and one of the U.S.'s first Secretaries of State. The New Geneva post office resided on the first floor of a house whose back appeared to be built into a hill.

New Geneva, PA post office:


The New Geneva post office, like Vowinckel's, was suspended October 7, 2011. If you believe the satellite view, there are a couple dozen residences in the town. The nearest post office is in the equally small town of Martin, two miles away.

A seven-mile drive southeast of New Geneva lies Lake Lynn, a town just north of the West Virginia border which possessed what appeared to be not more than a dozen homes. The Lake Lynn post office was suspended July 30, 2012; the nearest post office is Point Marion's, three miles away.

Lake Lynn, PA post office:

Suspended: Northwest New Jersey Ed.

Operations at the post office in Johnsonburg, New Jersey were suspended on March 17, presumably to 'lease concerns'. It is unknown whether this post office will re-open. I was fortunate enough to visit Johnsonburg in a quaint, rural part of northwest Jersey and obtain its postmark back in October:
Closest post office: Greendell, NJ. Distance: 3.8 [somewhat windy] miles.

Here is Greendell:

Also nearby: The lovely office of Tranquility, New Jersey; one of the most beautiful names I know for a town.