The impending closure of a Clinton Hill post office could make the routine task of sending a letter a long-distance slog, elderly neighbors of the doomed drop-box depot said at a meeting of a local panel on Thursday night.
Seniors from an apartment complex around the corner from the Myrtle Avenue post office pleaded with officials at a Community Board 2 meeting to keep the mailboxes close at hand, saying that they depend on them in a way younger generations do not understand.
“Not everyone is on computers and e-mail,” said Bre Emery, a resident of the Willoughby Walk Co-Op on Willoughby Avenue between Hall Street and Emerson Place. “And not only that, a post office is essential to the neighborhood. It’s everything.”
The Clinton Hill mail house must move next year, as does its Boerum Hill counterpart, though no one at the meeting advocated for saving that notoriously dirty and disorganized facility. The post offices’ leases run out in February and May, respectively, leaving little time for packing up and moving the massive operations that mail agency representatives said they still have not found new homes for.
The uncertainty about where the Clinton Hill operation will land has the oldsters who rely on it worried about what long walks the future could bring, but they admit that not everybody can access the kind of convenience their complex has enjoyed for more three decades.
“We’re kind of spoiled,” said Barbara Hill.
The federal parcel agency could get a break from the landlords of both post office buildings in the form of lease extensions, but the mailmen and women definitely have to find new digs sometime soon, said Community Board 2 District Manager Robert Perris. The postal service plans to relocate the post offices within their zip codes and will likely rent from private owners, which is increasingly common for the agency, according to Perris.
