Photo by Jen Carlson/Gothamist
[UPDATED BELOW] United States Postal Service, you do not make it easy to love you. "We" sent a check out earlier this week by placing it in this mailbox on the corner of Water and Jay Streets in Brooklyn, as we have done in the past, but the NYC-based recipient has not yet received said check yet. Last night we checked the box on our way to the subway, recalling that it had seemed a bit full when we originally placed the check in, and lo and behold, it had envelopes bursting out of it. By this morning you couldn't even open the flap. A call to the Cadman Plaza Post Office (1.5 stars on Yelp!), which is responsible for the daily pick up at this box, garnered... no answer. A call to the USPS customer service got us a case opened, which we should be hearing about by... the middle of next week. And finally, we have reached out to two press contacts here in New York City, and one has contacted us and is looking into this mystery.
We'll update this post when we hear back, because, what happens when the USPS neglects to pick up mail that may be time sensitive? Is there a real life Newman out there that got ambushed by a band of backwoods mail-hating survivalists, or is he simply yucking it up and eating Mackinaw peaches on the clock?
UPDATE: Our (actually quite helpful!) USPS contact tells us, "I assure you a report of a missing piece is an anomaly as we have a nationwide Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for the withdraw of mail from blue collection boxes on the street. It’s part of our Collection Point Management System (CPMS). All collectors use scanners to record the time mail is picked up. Each collection box is equipped with a barcode used with a scanning device. When employees open the collection boxes, they scan the barcode. If a scan is missing an employee is sent out again to clear the box of mail and create a scan."
Allegedly this box was picked up yesterday at 3 p.m. (and was also supposed to be picked up at 10 a.m. today), but it seems a bit too coincidental that the box has seemingly been full all week, now reaching its limit, and our piece of mail placed in it has yet to be delivered. Guess this is one mystery that will never be solved. At least we've been told someone is coming to unload it now.
