Internet Glitch Forces Inwood Post Office To Shut Down, USPS Says

INWOOD, NY — A problem with the branch's internet connection shut down the Inwood Post Office this week, frustrating customers who were there for anything except package pick-up.

The Vermilyea Avenue post office first encountered problems on Friday, Feb. 14, when its Verizon internet service went out because of a "cabling issue," a spokesperson for the U.S. Postal Service told Patch.

The internet was back up and running by Thursday, but the outage left the post office unable to complete any service — like passport services, package drop-offs or buying supplies — that required a retail transaction in the meantime, the spokesperson, Xavier Hernandez, said.

"It caused a major disruption with all our ability to do every retail transaction," Hernandez said. "We have only been able to conduct package pick-ups from the office and regular delivery service."

Verizon put in a temporary fix for the issue on Wednesday night, which meant the post office could offer all its services again on Thursday. They then fully fixed the cable problem Thursday afternoon, Hernandez said.

The service shut-down left dozens of customers frustrated and confused as signs in the windows and staff turned them away during the outage.

"[There were] at least a dozen bewildered, inconvenienced customers in the less than 15 minutes I was there," one resident Barry Solow said in a post to Patch on Wednesday morning.

Solow, who was there to drop off a birthday card for a relative, added that there seemed to be a "skeleton staff" at the branch, though he said he blamed the "corporate management" rather than the local employees for the issue. One employee told him that the post office's computers were down, he said.

(Barry Solow, used with permission).

Hernandez said customers were likely directed to other nearby branches, like the Fort George USPS branch about a mile away on Broadway. The CVS near the 90 Vermilyea Ave. branch also offers some postal service, he said.

USPS's online locator shows that there are four locations that offer postal services within one mile of the Vermilyea branch.

But it seemed customers who went to other branches also encountered issues.

"I went to Ft. George. Only 2 'regular' windows open," one customer said online. "The lines were looooooong."