U.S. Postal Service may Axe 40 Brooklyn Stations

Snow, rain and gloom of night can’t stop them – but budget cuts might.

The United States Postal Service is considering closing as many as 40 post offices throughout Brooklyn, according to union officials.

The prime targets are 18 retail stations in storefronts around the borough, said Brooklyn American Postal Workers Union president Jim Musumeci.

“It’s totally unfair to the citizens of Brooklyn,” said Musumeci, who added he was told by local postal officials the storefronts had been singled out of the list of 40. “It’s especially unfair to seniors and the people that rely on public transportation to get their mail.”

In May, the USPS announced plans to close or consolidate as many as 3,000 post offices nationwide following years of decreased revenue. Retail stations in neighborhoods such as Bedford-Stuyvesant, Bay Ridge, Prospect Park, Windsor Terrace, Brownsville and Coney Island are all on the chopping block.

“Brooklyn isn’t a small town; we need our post offices,” said retired oil worker Arnold Lowenstein, 82, as he left the Ovington Retail Station in Bay Ridge.

Lowenstein needs a walker to travel the two blocks from his apartment to the Ovington Station. He’d be forced to walk 20 blocks to the next-closest post office if his was shut down. “Money’s really tight … so I couldn’t take the bus. I’m an old man,” he said. “It would take me over an hour to walk that far.”

At the Halsey St. station in Bed-Stuy, Wilhelmina Bowles said it would be a “tragedy” if her post office closed.

“They better not close mine,” said Bowles, a retired dental assistant. “I’ve been coming here for years.”

Zip codes with more than one postal retail station are at greater risk to experience a closure as the Postal Service aims to eliminate what it calls “duplication of service.”

Post offices on Seventh Ave. in Park Slope and on Prospect Park West in Windsor Terrace share the same 11215 zip code, meaning one of them will likely be closed in September.

Postal Service officials did not return repeated calls for comment.