Living with no mail delivery
Glenwood Landing residents must go to their post office to collect their mail. Credit: Newsday / Steve Pfost
Jeremy Barth lives in Glenwood Landing.
For generations, residents of Glenwood Landing, New York, ZIP code 11547, have been denied a service that most Americans take for granted: residential mail delivery.
While people in neighboring communities such as Sea Cliff, Glen Head, Brookville and Roslyn Harbor receive mail directly at their homes, Glenwood Landing residents must go to the local post office to retrieve it from post office boxes. This burden affects everyone, especially seniors, residents with mobility challenges and working families.
So what’s the reason behind no mail delivery here? There’s a United States Postal Service rule that requires a minimum of 750 delivery addresses per route for direct carrier delivery that Glenwood Landing didn’t originally meet.
Today, Glenwood Landing is a well-established Nassau County suburb surrounded by neighborhoods with full residential delivery. Residents support the same postal system and reasonably expect equal treatment.
Recent discussions about increasing post office box fees have heightened concerns. When residents have no practical alternative for receiving mail, it is fair to question whether they receive the same level of service as neighboring communities.
The USPS should explain why Glenwood Landing continues to be excluded from residential mail delivery even as the number of addresses here has increased. Current conditions warrant a formal review.
This is not merely a matter of convenience but of fairness and equal access to a basic public service. The residents of Glenwood Landing deserve answers.
Jeremy Barth lives in Glenwood Landing.
