Two Brooklyn post offices will soon need to fill out change-of-address forms.
The Clinton Hill post office near the Pratt Institute and the notoriously dirty and disorganized Boerum Hill post office near the Barclays Center will finish out their leases in the first half of 2014. The private owners of both buildings are telling the mail houses to scram and make way for new tenants, a local community board leader said. Some neighbors who have relied on the post offices for decades are down in the dumps about the impending closures.
“The post office is a major part of [older people’s] lives and their regular routines,” said Robert Perris, district manager of Community Board 2. “They would really miss it.”
The feds plan to relocate the post offices within their respective neighborhoods and will likely look to rent from private landlords instead of buying buildings, as is increasingly common for mail agency, according to Perris.
The two post offices have occupied the buildings at 542 Atlantic Ave. and 524 Myrtle Ave. for more than 30 years, but the landlord for at least one of the buildings is looking to redevelop the space, even though the postal service pays market rate for commercial space in the neighborhood, Perris said.
The Clinton Hill post office in particular is beloved by the neighborhood, and some locals are dreading the day it disappears.
“Will we have to go to Cadman Plaza?” asked David Robinson, a former postman and a neighbor of the Clinton Hill parcel plex. “You can’t park around there.”
“It’s going to be a much longer walk for me,” said Fedelia Edwin, who works at a nearby supermarket and fetches its mail multiple times a week.
But some Boerum Hill locals are happy to see the Atlantic Avenue office go, Perris said.
“It is the postal station that I see the most complaints about and some people have considered that a new building will be the solution to its service problems,” he said.
Perris is not so sure, though.
“I’m always somewhat wary of architectural determinism,” he said.
Postal service reps will take comments about the moves at a Community Board 2 meeting on Dec. 5. The leases for the Clinton Hill and Boerum Hill sites will expire in May and February, respectively.
Postal service hearing at the North Pavilion of the Brooklyn Hospital Center [121 DeKalb Avenue, third floor auditorium, between Saint Felix Street and Fort Greene Place in Fort Greene]. Thurs, Dec. 5, 6 pm.
