Riverdale area officials urge USPS action at Kappock Street branch

Editor's note 5/28/26: A previous version of this story misrepresented Karen Kawaguchi's title.  She is a Save Knolls co-organizer. 

As complaints mount over staffing shortages, midday closures and concerns about mail theft, residents and elected officials are urging the United States Postal Service’s Bronx Postmaster Adela Livingston to intervene at the Kappock Street post office, a small branch many in Spuyten Duyvil describe as essential to daily life.

The USPS branch sits along a commercial strip dotted with vacant storefronts, in an area community advocates have spent months trying to revitalize through the Save Knolls Kappock Retail effort. Residents said the post office has increasingly become tied to broader anxieties about neighborhood decline, accessibility and the erosion of basic local services.

In a May 14 letter addressed to Livingston, U.S. Rep. Ritchie Torres and Assembly member Jeffrey Dinowitz called the post office at 562 Kappock St. a “cornerstone” of the Knolls Crescent corridor, serving more than 11,000 residents, many of them older adults without easy access to transportation.

Both USPS and employees at the Spuyten Duyvil branch declined to comment.

The post office rests at the center of a dense residential pocket of Spuyten Duyvil lined with high-rise co-ops and apartment towers, including The Century, The Winston Churchill, Riverpoint Towers and the two Knolls Cooperative buildings.

Spuyten Duyvil local Stephanie Coggins said the post office has become tied to fears about the future of the neighborhood and the services to which residents have access.

For many residents, she explained, particularly seniors without cars, the small branch represents more than a convenience. Reaching alternative post offices in Kingsbridge or central Riverdale often requires bus rides, long walks uphill or additional transportation costs.

Concerns about the branch have lingered for years but have intensified in recent months as residents noticed reduced staffing, inconsistent hours and increasing mail theft.

“There’s a real fear that it’s going to be taken away,” Coggins said. “There’ll be no place for people to go except somewhere else in Riverdale or Kingsbridge, which would require a significant amount of transportation.”

Many neighbors no longer trust outdoor blue mailboxes after repeated reports of stolen checks and glued collection slots that prevent mail from dropping properly. Instead, residents report increasingly hand-delivering mail directly inside the branch — particularly when sending checks, rent payments or sensitive documents.

On May 9, Coggins sent a letter on behalf of Save Knolls to the Bronx postmaster before reaching out to elected officials, hoping to draw attention to what she and other residents see as a worsening situation.

Similarly, the lawmakers’ letter cited chronic understaffing, closures lasting roughly 90 minutes during the middle of the day and concerns over the security of outdoor mail collection boxes.

Karen Kawaguchi, Save Knolls co-organizer, said many residents have largely adapted to the branch’s limitations because they are more concerned about preserving the post office than criticizing it.

“The biggest concern now is we don’t want it to close down,” Kawaguchi said. “The postal system as a whole is not doing well financially, so I know that they must be looking at branches that they can cut.”

She described the branch as frequently operating with only a single employee handling customers while also sorting mail for the surrounding community. Kawaguchi said she was struck by the difference between the Kappock Street branch and post offices she used previously, where multiple workers were consistently available at service windows.

“For a long time they only had the one person who worked hard, but she’s there alone almost all the time,” She added. “I’m grateful the service is here, but I wish it was a little bit better.”

Several residents interviewed outside the branch offered more mixed assessments. Some acknowledged frustrations with midday closures and understaffing but said the post office remained significantly more convenient than traveling to larger branches in Kingsbridge or central Riverdale, where lines can stretch much longer.

Others described workers there as friendly and said they appreciated simply having a neighborhood location available, even if service could sometimes be inconsistent.

Freda Tourin, a resident who once used the branch regularly, said conditions there have improved somewhat over the last year, though operational issues remain noticeable.

“They don’t always keep to the hours posted,” Tourin said. “Sometimes where there should be more than one post worker, there’s one.”

Dinowitz said his office has fielded complaints about the branch for years, though concerns have grown more intense in recent months.

“People complain that they take these 90-minute lunches when they close the place, which kind of suggests a possible understaffing,” Dinowitz said. “People deserve to have decent service.”

He added that losing the branch would disproportionately affect older adults and residents without cars living in the dense apartment complexes surrounding Kappock Street. Dinowitz noted that many residents no longer feel comfortable placing important mail in outdoor boxes because of the ongoing theft concerns.

Torres described the situation as part of a broader national decline in postal reliability, but said the impact is especially severe in Spuyten Duyvil because of the neighborhood’s steep terrain, aging population and limited transit access.

“The death of reliable service at the Kappock Street post office has been a real hardship on the residents of Spuyten Duyvil, particularly its most vulnerable senior citizens,” Torres said.

In their letter, Torres and Dinowitz urged a review of staffing and operational capacity at the branch, arguing that maintaining reliable service there “is not simply a matter of convenience, it is a necessity for the well-being and connectivity of the community it serves.”