By Daniel Krieger
One morning last week, Brigitte Ortner went to her local post office on Columbus Avenue by 95th Street to purchase stamps. Some birthdays are coming up and she likes to send cards because the people she knows like to display their birthday cards. So she walked up to the counter and asked to look at some stamps. “I wanted to pick something pretty,” she said, in a recent phone interview.
The woman at the counter of the Park West Station told her they didn’t have stamps and to go to the post office on 104th Street. Ms. Ortner, who is 94 years old, did not feel up to the walk of more than half a mile.
“I said, ‘what do you mean you don’t have any stamps? You’re a post office!’” she recounted. “I think I was too astonished to say anything more.”
In over 70 years of living on the Upper West Side and buying stamps, she has never had this happen and is still not sure where she’s going to acquire the stamps she needs. “Maybe they’ll have stamps sooner or later,” she said.
Two weeks ago, Marcia Epstein, an Upper West Sider of over 50 years, went to the same post office to get stamps to mail some bills and had the same experience, as reported in the Rag. Asked what she makes of this in a phone interview, she said, “I think it’s weird. This has never happened before.” She is now considering trekking up to 104th Street, but it depends how her back is doing.
Hearing about this mysterious stamp shortage, I went to the Park West Station on Tuesday at 3pm. Moments after arriving, I saw a customer service rep walking down the line asking if anybody needed help. A woman at the end said she was there to buy stamps and wanted to know if that was possible.
“We don’t have stamps,” the rep said.
“Why don’t you have stamps?” the woman asked.
“No, no, no,” the rep said, “it’s not that we don’t have stamps, we have them, but the person who can take them out of the safe is not here right now.”
“And you don’t have a backup person?” the woman asked.
“Ma’am, ma’am,” the rep said, “we’re trying to solve this problem.”
Just to make sure that I was hearing correctly, I said to the rep: “So the stamps are locked in a safe and the only person who can open the safe is not here?”
“Yes,” she said
“And they weren’t here last week, either?”
“No.”
“Is she on vacation?” the woman asked.
“I don’t know,” the rep said.
“This is really incredible,” the woman said. “It has to be addressed.”
As she was walking away, I asked for her take on the matter. The woman, Linda Cardona, who has lived on the Upper West Side for over 30 years and had come to mail an international letter, told me that this station has problems. (She pointed out that the lift for wheelchairs to get down the stairs was broken, and next to the lift there was a sign that says, “Please Ring Bell For Service,” but there was no bell.)
“I came here a couple of days ago and they didn’t have stamps,” Ms. Cardona said.
Asked what she thought of the rep’s explanation about the stamps, she said, “It doesn’t make sense. This is a first.”
To get to the bottom of this, I sent an email to several United States Postal Service media relations specialists who deal with stamp issues. I got a response pretty quickly from a USPS spokesperson, Xavier C. Hernandez, who wrote:
“As a result of unfortunate circumstances, officials with normal access to the secure storage vault are not available. This issue prevents the Park West Station’s ability to sell certain accountable items like stamps or money orders until a qualified locksmith is contracted. The Manhattan postmaster and the retail team have been, and continue, doing everything in their power to resolve the situation. They expect a resolution soon.”
You can always order stamps online at: https://store.usps.com/store/home
Update, Saturday, 1 pm:
I called the post office on Saturday morning, and asked, “do you have stamps?“
“Yes, we have stamps.”
“When did you open the vault to get the stamps?”
“We just have the stamps, OK? Have a nice day.“
This is so ridiculous and yet somehow not unsurprising. Many Walgreens and CVS locations also sell stamps — ask at the counter.
I wonder what else is in the safe that they haven’t been able to access for 2+ weeks.
(I hope no one put their yogurt in there, or those stamps be STANK .)
Maybe that’s where the person that can’t be located is
Good one.
Lol let’s hope not.
This is highly bizarre
The bureaucracy and incompetence of USPS is truly astonishing. I occasionally mail some things at that particular post office and 9 times out of 10 it takes 3 times longer than needed because only when counter is open when the lines is all the way to the door. Or that there are two people working but they chitchat for 5 mins between every customer they serve.
People can thank President Trump’s new Postmaster General Appointee Mr Louis
Dejoy. Louis Dejoy has no Postal knowledge and hasn’t a Postal Idea that the USPS is Service for the public. He thinks it’s all about the money.
Yes good one blame President Trump for local management issues.
Whoa! Someone else has had two years to fire and replace Mr Dejoy. That’s worse than the person who appointed him in the first place.
The President of the United States cannot fire and replace DeJoy as postmaster general. That can only be done by the USPS board of governors. Biden has appointed people to the board. It’s up to them to take action.
Uh, your “someone else” (Biden) has no authority to fire the USPS Postmaster General. Only the USPS Board of Governors can fire DeJoy, and it has to be by a unanimous vote. So, we are stuck with this guy who wants to gut and destroy the USPS.
I think you get my point. Biden has the authority to nominate USPS Board of Governor nominees – thus is ultimately responsible for the nine member Board who can hire and fire the Postmaster General.. The real problem lies with the fact that this over-bloated bureaucracy that has contumely run massive deficits for their inefficiencies, union strangleholds, and poor management practices, should have been privatized decades ago. The USPS is an embarrassment to the concept of best mama eg ent practices, that long precedes Dejoy, et al.
The USPS ran in the black until they were required by the Republican led Congress to fund their retirement healthcare 75 YEARS into the future. No other industry requires that. Then DeJoy comes in and takes out much needed sorting machines. The USPS is suffering under a Republican made crisis that can’t be fixed in a single term.
I sent out gifts from there one time and no one got their package so I stopped using that post office!
That happened to me in Afghanistan in 1974; nobody got anything I mailed from Kabul.
Is the United States in the process of becoming Afghanistan, one breakdown at a time??
Yes. Just like Afghanistan. I’ve seen some bizarre comments, but this takes the cake.
Is this the result of Louis De Joy killing the whole postal system? I remember when they used to have stamp vending machines which I don’t see anymore either. Ridiculous. BTW some supermarkets and pharmacy chains sell stamps at the checkout counters too.
Yes sure, the USPS was highly successful, efficient and profitable until 2020…
The USPS was doing fine until 2006. That’s when Congress made them fund their retirement healthcare 75 years into the future. That would wreck the profitability of any company.
The post office was never supposed to be profitable
Why would you expect the USPS to be profitable? It’s a government agency that provides a necessary service; making a profit is not their mission. Why aren’t you asking how profitable the FBI is? Or the Department of Agriculture? Or the FDA?
no it is NOT a government agency and is organized to be independent and self efficient. which is NOT.
Here’s a link to a page on usa.gov that identifies the USPS as a government agency:
https://www.usa.gov/federal-agencies/u-s-postal-service
Don’t you feel silly now?
From your link, “Government branch: Independent Agency”
So no, I don’t feel silly.
No. Stamps and anything else with cash value is kept in a large safe. The station manager seems to have gone on vacation and didn’t leave the safe keys. And dejoy has actually addressed some issues that we have had for a very long time, making some things go much smoother and fixing many of our financial issues.
Decoy wants nothing more than to gut the Post Office
If only he could… what a dream.
Yes, my local Walmart sells stamps
There are 0 Walmarts in N.Y.C.
Go to CVS
But there are no Walmarts on the UWS!
Their mini elevator was broken when I wanted to use it (roughly) five years ago. And three. years ago… (I can’t be any more precise as it’s not my primary post office).
So yeah, they have issues.
New take on classics – nobody ever went broke underestimating the incompetence of usps. ( specifically uws stations )
…how long does it take to call a locksmith???
But it’s the government. So they probably have to get three quotes, submit a purchase order, get the purchase order approved, get special permission to destroy Federal property (the lock), and do all of this by fax only. /sarcasm
As bad as the 95th St. post office is, it pales compared to Cathedral Parkway (104th St). Check out their Yelp reviews. Many years ago the 68th & Columbus was my PO, it was always great (relatively speaking, considering it’s still a post office).
…And don’t even mention going to the Planetarium USPS… unless you’re a bored masochist with a few hours to to destroy for no purpose.
You can get stamps there, however, from the self-service kiosks (two out of the four are usually working). Just the plain “forever” version, but they work. For the pretty ones you have to wait in endless lines because out of about seven windows, only two are usually staffed. Planetarium is not a model of Post Office efficiency, but light years better than that thing on 95th St.
“They expect a resolution soon” is a hilarious response for how simple the solution here is… just call a locksmith? feel like this could be resolved in like an hour.
It is not that simple. The missing postal worker is responsible for whatever is in that safe. Obviously there’s much more to this story but bottom line is no one is authorized to open that safe. They could’ve and should’ve ordered an emergency supply of stamps when they saw they were running low but that would’ve been up to the station manager
Lol
Typical.
The government is simply terrible at turning (our) money into goods and services. Schools, letter delivery, roads, garbage collection, etc. The bloat and inefficiency don’t change depending on the guy on top. It’s the benefit of being an legal monopoly or entrenched player long due for replacement. That the government is now 20% of our economy isn’t a good sign.
Patently false.
The gov’t of the USA accomplishes a vast amount of work with no PR to shout its praises.
Instead, only stale talking points like your own and tired Reagan slogans about gov’t being here to help… what a canard; the gov’t has helped save MILLIONS of lives with everything from FEMA to Art Allen, an oceanographer with the Coast Guard’s search and rescue office in Groton, Conn. who helped create a computerized model of how to pinpoint the search areas based on multiple data points that alone has saved thousands of lives (SAROPS-Search and Rescue Optimal Planning System)
Here’s a sentence from a review of The Fifth Risk (which details these heretofore unknown accomplishments):
“Did you know that in the 60’s a nuclear bomb accidentally fell out of a transport plane over NC and didn’t explode because 1 of the 4 safety devices installed on it held – safety devices studied and implemented by the Dept. of Energy. There are so many threats to the U.S. that require constant vigilance (e.g. keeping track of the movement of uranium) that are managed by departments that are NOT the department of defense.”
The gov’t has many researchers and projects that have come up with everything from the internet to Kevlar vests to Art Allen, who created a computerized model of how to pinpoint the search areas based on multiple data points (saving thousands of lives).
However, this is a great country to live in. That’s why people are always risking their lives to come here. I doubt someone from crushing poverty or civil war cares if they have to walk three blocks for stamps.
Tell this to the elderly or with disabilities & the dangerous streets lately..
you realize our money ie.taxes have nothing to do with the post office? It is self supported
In reality, the USPS is not financially sustainable and is in astronomical debt. https://www.gao.gov/highrisk/usps-financial-viability
That’s ridiculous. All they have to do is have their maintenance department drill the safe open and 2 people can verify the stamp stock. It’s been done many times in these types of situations.
Here are some other things that were unavailable when I was there yesterday:
1. Postal orders
2. Pens for filling in forms (because Covid)
3 .Priority Mail padded envelopes. Well, they did actually have lots of these, but the employee who gave them to me reluctantly said they weren’t *required* to have them and I should have ordered them for home delivery.
4. A pleasing attitude (see #3)
Insane, incompetenc?! Another paid by the peoples, tax money in which is agovernment service and not rendered! This is just shameful on this postmaster!!!
The USPS is independently funded by the sale of their products and services. Not by taxpayers money.
The USPS has lost $78 billion since 2007 despite receiving billions from taxpayers every year, get your facts straight.
This shortfall is mostly due to the USPS being required to fund retirments 75 years in advance. Maybe you should check your facts…
TOTALLY CORRECT!
90 % of it is,basically a manufatured/fakes loss
You mean the USPS is funded by their sales of stamps and money orders that evidently they refuse to sell and can’t or won’t even commit to a timeline as to when they might actually return to the business of being in business and selling them?
Well, this postmaster is a Republican and they don’t appear to be familiar with shame.
I think the postmaster gave special instructions to not sell stamps on the UWS due to possible left/progressive content of the correspondence.
I’m pretty sure their Pitney Bowes isn’t in the vault, they could of ran the mail as meter mail for their customers.
My experience with UWS post offices (mine is the West 83rd St station and it is equally as bad as this one) is that they could care less and wouldn’t go out of their way to provide a compensatory service for anyone. It’s obscene how rude, nasty and unwilling to be helpful many postal employees are. The again, I’ve been to other post offices in the city where employees were very helpful.
I went today to the West 83 Street Station to buy stamps & they only had Buzz Lightyear stamps & nothing else to choose from.
I personally have experienced that post office. They are really really terrible. They don’t even try to hide their disdain for customers.
The USPS needs a new motto. I suggest: “The U.S. Postal Service. Whaddya gonna do? Deliver it yourself?”
I was at this post office 2 days ago, you can still buy some stamps there from the stamp vending machine that is near the entrance. This is sufficient for mailing a letter but I too prefer buying fancy stamps like flowers or the recent stamp releases and being able to choose.
Exactly, the machine in the front if it’s not broken dispenses stamps. There Should be someone helping customers buy stamps from that machine.
Of course nobody thought to bring some stamps over from the other post office. Instead they tell the customers to go there.
You can’t just transfer stamps station to station.
Why not? Why can’t stamps that are for sale by the USPS in one post office be sold in a different post office instead?
And the weird jerk running the entire U S Postal Service is closing 200-250 post offices in small towns all across America AND apparently that “savings” will allow him to buy a whole fleet of new carbon based fuel guzzling trucks that have to pick up mail in larger towns and drive hundreds of miles to deliver mail to the towns with recently closed facilities. DeJoy is an IDIOT and a Frumpster.
The present “leader”has been in office for almost two years.How come he hasn’t done anything at the P O?
The USPS is run by a board that was appointed by the former guy. They can only be replaced so fast.
They seem to have a lot of staffing issues. I’ve gone several times at 9 a.m. (when they are supposed to open) only for there to be a line of people outside and the interior to be dark. It happened at least 3 times over the past year. There were also at least two instances when I went in and an alarm (I believe either the fire alarm or an alarm associated with the [broken] wheelchair lift) was beeping incessantly, I felt bad for the staff–that alarm was going off non-stop.
I wish President Biden can find a way to fire De Joy. De Joy’s mission has been to destroy the Post Office. This is unacceptable, but I’m not surprised. Any person that was placed by Trump is out to disrupt and disband the agency they are running. Why are our local politicians not addressing this.
Trump may have taken stamps with him to Mar-O-Logo. Wait till FBI confirms that all the pretty stamps are there.
I was at the Park West PO yesterday (Sept 13th) when I saw a wheel chair bound person dealing with the non functioning chair lift! (out of service for months now). He was concerned about having to ask others to get a package he was there to pick up. He had to implore others to request this package since he was unable to go the 40 feet to do so himself! A good simaritan retrieved his package and handed it to him. Shouldn’t an employee have helped him instead!
That reminds me of a situation I witnessed at the 83rd Street location not long ago. There was a person in line who was clearly having some neurological distress; almost in excruciating pain. Everyone in line was concerned for her welfare. I asked the manager if she could be moved to the front of the line. Her reply was that the customer would have to wait like everyone else. Nice.
The Planetarium Post Office at 83rd St between Columbus and Amsterdam Aves still sells lots of pretty stamps. Staff can be pleasant and helpful if you engage with them on a human level.
Eric, thanks for the laugh!
Wrong, I went today to buy stamps & the only stamps were a children’s stamp Buzz Lightyear & nothing else to pick.
Hmmm, could they not take some of the merchandise from the post office on W 104th or the one on W 83rd, and bring it to W 95th Street, so that patrons can purchase them at W 95th? They could log the serial numbers of money orders and the lot for the stamps (possibly) for tracking purposes, or maybe just do an internal transfer of assets? Of course, this may be too easy of a solution and there’s more red tape to go through than that, but it’s sad that we cannot get what the post office is in business for, at their storefront!
— “could they not take some of the merchandise from the post office on W 104th or the one on W 83rd, and bring it to W 95th Street…”
Actually, I’ll bet they had the same idea — but they sent the merchandise by USPS mail so it will take a w….h….i….l….e to arrive…… (if, of course, it arrives at all…..)
Why hasn’t Biden fired Louis De Joy as he promised to do so to salvage the PO System? Trump placed Louis De Joy in his job with no issues. Come on DEMS, learn the ropes!!!!
The Post Master General is appointed by the Board of Governors of 7 people. So get off the Trump blaming train.
Three of which are Trump appointees. The Trump train is still lumbering down that track.
This one has problems? The one on 83rd Street is just as bad. They all have “problems,” Time to privatize the whole thing.
The Post Office on Columbus/68th st. is wonderful, the staff helpful and friendly, and they have LOTS OF STAMPS!!!!!!
These are the crabbiest postal workers that I have EVER encountered in my life! They are always disgruntled and put out by any question whatsoever. I think they screened these particular employees for the quality of sheer nastiness and meanness to everyone, young and old, healthy or infirm. Just the WORST. And obviously NO ONE tried any of the obvious work-arounds that were possible. I heard that this branch was closing permanently anyway – may it be so!! I usually go to 83rd Street. Ugh…
This is *insane*. I blame DeJoy.
Good people of WSR, I too enjoy the “fancy” stamps and have several sheets with different designs. If Brigitte or Marcia still needs stamps I would be happy to bring my collection to them so they can have a choice.
I’ve got a drawer full of stamps with Italian coffee themes (lattes, cappucinos, etc), roses, and a Title 9 design. I dread the day that Louis deJoy closes down the P.O. art department to save a couple of salaries.
I’m a usps window clerk as well and I can tell u that my little facility IS NOT like that. I work out of a sm satellite retail office in a strip mall. We hv no carriers (mailmen/women), and no spvrs. We do a great job and they lv us alone, except for when a new spvr comes in and want to micro manage like they’re the new sheriff in twn. Problem is ez, the lead clerk (T-7) is on vacation and the spvrs refuse to open the safe bc:
1- they don’t want to b responsible if anything goes missing, accidentally or intentionally.
2- lead clerk is being a jerk and not allowing them to go in there when he/she’s not there (hello? It’s usps property, hv a spvr open it and sell the dang stamp already; it’s not the clerk’s so they don’t hv to b there when it’s open. Just get a witness if you’re that’s scared a such a wuss of a spvr)
Thank you for getting a response albeit a bit nonsensical. I, too, had the same experience. There is a whole deterioration in this ‘satellite’ post office that led me to ask if it was closing. I was told no. Another interesting thing is as of late letters I have sent & Priority Mail…not arriving in usual time.. Something is going on….inquire at 104th St. They may be short staffed, but something is awry!
I always save time buying stamps online directly from USPS. Good variety of stamps and they come to your mailbox quickly. You can also pay a little more and get them from Amazon. Years ago, I used the PO when I wanted specialty stamps–celebrities, commemorative, etc. But I doubt local POs carry a large display any longer.
This is an excellent workaround for those who are disabled or have limited mobility. And, for the rest of us. Admittedly, it does NOT solve the core problem and mismanagement.
Why is anyone surprised? WSR did a story about this post office in 2018, see link below
https://www.westsiderag.com/2018/12/04/post-office-stops-delivering-packages-at-an-inconvneient-time
The CVS on Broadway at 77 Street often has stamps. Maybe other CVS stores do too.
I’m sure someone, the only one that knew the combination to that safe, either got fired, got sick, quit or died. Either way, there should have been a backup plan
A few months ago we had our mail forwarded while we were on a long trip. When we returned, I asked the USPO to stop forwarding the mail. My wife’s mail was no longer forwarded, but my mail continued to be forwarded. I contacted the local Post Office (68th and Columbus) and was told it can take a month. OK. 6 weeks later still forwarded. Clerk at PO said I should talk to our building mail person. He said he cannot do it and I must go to the post office. I was directed to the special window in the basement. After a long wait I was told I must talk to the supervisor tomorrow.
The next day I asked to talk to the supervisor and was told I can only reach her by phone. I called —ring—answering machine: leave message, we will call you back. No call back. Repeat 5 times. 1 hour and 20 minutes elapsed. Then an answer – put on hold and minutes later disconnected. Repeat. Repeat. Went to downstairs window. Wait. Was told supervisor is very busy. Again asked how to un-forward mail. Told she does not know. I asked her to talk to supervisor. Wait. Wait. She comes back and hands me a card for forwarding mail and says to fill it out and write on it “STOP FORWARDING”.
Elapsed time – 1 hour 45 minutes. It worked!
This post office is notorious. One of the tellers is vicious (if you use this P.O. you know whom I’m talking about). Just guaranteed to ruin your day if you have to deal with her – and leaves you wondering whether she will actually put your package into the mail rather than the trash. There are a couple of other old-timers there who are very kind and helpful, but even they are less pleasant nowadays, I’ve found. It’s all too much for them, I’m sure. The only good thing about the place is the occasional comradeie that develops in the line as customers wait for a half hour or longer to get to the window!
Amazon sells stamps. I got my holiday stamps delivered to my door last year.
Fire DeJoy!!
I’m sure Amazon will be selling stamps soon- Actually they’ll just make a competing business to the post office…
This may seem like a isolated incident but it’s not. It is also not always about being to access the safe and it happens at other post offices. It’s about LaJoy and what he has done to the postal service. He needs to go.
That is bizarre not having a back up person with access the vault. When the person with access knew they were going to be gone, should have left keys or contacted supervisor. Supervisor should have access to all buildings and vaults under their control.
File complaint to Postmaster General.
We have the same issues at our office. No one wants to come to work and that makes it hard on the ones who do show up for work. Getting people hired doesn’t happen either. I have been told since the beginning of the year we would have help in our office and still no help.
Welcome to the DeJoy world of gives a flying leap
You can always use stamps.com
If you can make the trek, the Ansonia PO (68th and Columbus) lways has a rich selection.
I was at the PO on W 68th and Columbus today. They had no rolls of stamps (I needed a thousand stamps) When would they be available? Next week!!
Try sending a letter to Luckey, Ohio.
You have the house number but not the P.O. Box number. It is not published so they return every letter including checks and important documents. The person running the P.O. knows the persons box number and street number but returns them.
Except Christmas cards are delivered without a P. O. Box number. Go figure! I paid for the delivery for the Whole Town! All returned!!! Wasted money!
The Ansonia Post Office refused to date stamp my mail in ballot “we are not allowed to do that” and then I had to fill out a special affirmation that I sent t it in time, as apparently, it didn’t get there in time.
CVS on Amsterdam and 86th Street sells stamps. But no choices. You can buy what they have (no service fee), which is usually the flag design.