Whether they are hemorrhaging money, throwing your mail into the trash, or constitutionally guaranteeing your right to privacy (who does that?), the U.S. Postal Service seems to always be getting in your way. Murray Hill residents are suffering more than most: mail trucks are now taking away their parking spots.
The New York Post has filed on the developing parking wars between Murray Hillers and the USPS. Due to their dire fiscal straits, the Post Office on East 36th Street was forced to rent out some of their garage space to a private delivery company (free enterprise, nice), leaving a number of their trucks without a place to park. Truck drivers quickly resorted to "find[ing] places out in the street on Third Avenue and wherever else.”
Idling trucks are double parking, smogging up streets, making deliveries incredibly difficult, and generally disturbing the sleepy bank-side community. A spokesperson for the USPS, Congetta Chirichell, told the Post that it would be too expensive to park trucks at other postal facilities around the city, adding that the Department of Transportation is working on acquiring more designated parking spots for the trucks.
Apparently this has Murray Hill residents fuming, though the Post speaks with two doormen and a flower shop employee, so the true condition of other residents remains unclear. Regardless, we get the money quote from 47-year-old doorman Raymond Reyes: "This is Murray Hill, so this isn’t good for our image. We have million-dollar condominiums around here. A lot of these trucks are really grungy looking.” The mail—can't live with it, probably will live without it at some point in the near future.
