A mailbox once stood next to this garbage can on 88th and York Avenue.
There’s a section of Yorkville where mailboxes seem to be disappearing, much to the bewilderment of locals. A longtime resident brought the issue up to Our Town NY after noticing two that were missing.
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“After over 50 years, the mailbox at E. 88th St. & York Ave. has vanished. And so have the mailboxes in front of the E. 85th Street Post Office,” Frank Wilkinson told the website. East Side Feed can confirm that there are no longer mailboxes at either location.
USPS Strategic Communications representative Xavier Hernandez told East Side Feed that mailboxes can be removed, temporarily or permanently, from certain areas for a number of reasons.
“These include accommodating maintenance requests, low usage, and as a result of theft or vandalism,” he said in an email on Thursday. A follow-up email asking again about the specific mailboxes has yet to receive a reply.
However, vandalism is reportedly the culprit; another USPS communications employee, Steve Doherty, told Our Town NY that “vandalism/theft concerns” led to the boxes being removed, and that there are no plans to replace them.
“It was determined that the availability of other boxes within a short walking distance minimized any impact to the community,” Doherty told the outlet.
Although it’s not a frequent occurrence, the Upper East Side isn’t a stranger to mail-related crime.
In October 2023, federal authorities indicted 27 people for committing mail-related crimes, with almost half of the reported incidents taking place on the UES. Later that same month, two men were arrested on Halloween night for trying to “fish” mail out of a box on First Avenue and 86th Street using a belt with some sort of adhesive on it, according to Patch.
Some mailbox removals in New York and elsewhere have been related to Project Safe Delivery, an initiative the USPS rolled out in May 2023. Aimed at curbing mail theft and letter carrier robberies, among other mail-related criminal activity, the project also includes replacing older blue collection boxes with “high security blue collection boxes.”
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YES, I noticed this and am upset the mailbox is gone. I had to mail a birthday card from another “new to me” mailbox and it has now been lost for over a month. Never had an issue w/the one that was at 88th st. and given the proximity to Gracie Mansion, it doesn’t really make sense that it would be targeted for theft.
hello the usps has to have a drop off box in every lobby, every
store, every hospital in n y c , problem solved
And why does USPS allow the drop slots on remaining boxes to remain sticky with glue, evidently put there by thieves. The one at 3rd Ave and 96th St. was so gummed up this week I couldn’t even get an item through.