January 10, 2007
Fire in Columbia Heights Metro Station
It sure ain't easy being the Green Line this week. Local blog Heights of Columbia brings us this image of fire trucks lined up outside the Columbia Heights Metro stop, where a small fire apparently broke out inside the station. Check out the link for a few more photos. The WMATA web site indicates the station has already been re-opened, so if anyone's nearby, let us know what the fire damage looks like, if any. No reports of any injuries, and we still haven't heard what the cause or the specific location of the minor blaze was. Fortunately it doesn't look like it will be a problem for the evening commute.
Photo by Jules at Heights of Columbia.
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This has NOTHING to do with this fire, but has anyone else in the Columbia Heights are been having problems with mail delivery? I sent several pieces of mail last week from different mailboxes (and, in one instance, the A-M post office on 18th St.), and nothing has arrived anywhere. Some of the recipients are in DC also, which has me worried. And I haven't received any mail at all a couple of days this week, which is a little bit unusual, but I don't know if it's just me or my whole building. Is anyone else having problems??
This has NOTHING to do with this fire, but has anyone else in the Columbia Heights are been having problems with mail delivery? I sent several pieces of mail last week from different mailboxes (and, in one instance, the A-M post office on 18th St.), and nothing has arrived anywhere. Some of the recipients are in DC also, which has me worried. And I haven't received any mail at all a couple of days this week, which is a little bit unusual, but I don't know if it's just me or my whole building. Is anyone else having problems??
I'm sure one of the mods will lay the smackdown on my for this, but WTF is up with the comments the last couple of days? Does anyone know if other -ist cities have the same problems with the comments?
The reliability of posting comments to the DCist site always sucks. But where's my f**king mail???
Hill Rat, we are frustrated with comment performance as well lately, and it is an ist-wide problem. The Overlords in New York are working on a solution. Our apologies, it's beyond our control.
But where's my f**king mail???
My guess is that there are a couple of very stoned letter carriers giggling and reading a mash note from Miles.
Maybe your mail carrier got hit by rock-throwing children?
Mine really did get jumped on Girard a few months ago.
Um, what's a "mash note?" And who's Miles?
Hill Rat, we are frustrated with comment performance as well lately, and it is an ist-wide problem. The Overlords in New York are working on a solution. Our apologies, it's beyond our control.
No worries mate, I was just seeking info. I remember a while back there was some discussion (read: bitch fest) on the comment problems and we warned to stay on topic by one of the mods.
If y'all need beta testers for new commenting technology I would love to help out.
Best,
HR
Jeebus, they're throwing rocks now? What happened to pennies?
Postal issues? I thought it was just me.
http://www.heightsofcolumbia.com/?p=8
I'm going to call the bloody post office today and see if I can get a human to comment. Providing I can find a human in the first place.
Um, what's a "mash note?" And who's Miles?
Not a Simpsons fan, eh? In one episode Mr. Burns tells Smithers, "Smithers, come over here and help me write a mash note to my girlfriend."
This post wasn't from you?
Wow, either you have an incredibly photographic memory for random Internet blather, or else you're a former Stasi agent stalking me.
I think I gave that post about .4 seconds of conscious thought and promptly forgot about it after pressing the send button. Do you, like, cross-reference these things in a database somewhere?
Hey, Jules - where do you live? (Not stalking, but for geographic comparison purposes.) I'm on 16th just south of Columbia Rd., zip code 20009.
I'm getting really frigging pissed off. I haven't noticed any problems with my mail delivery at all until just this week, but most of my problems are with things going the other way - stuff I send out (like checks, etc.)
Where is the main post office for 20009? Is it the one on 14th & T or the one on 18th St. at Kalorama? The phone book is extremely unhelpful and only lists a post office at 14th & Irving, which I'm convinced doesn't in fact exist or is now a giant hole that will eventually sprout a Target.
http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-mas1.htm
Like when Bugs Bunny is dressed in drag and Yosimite Sam starts harassing him and Bugs yells, "Stop! You masher!"
wow...well im glad i didnt leave the apartment today...
Jason-
14th & T should be your main office. At least, it is for me, and I'm only a couple of blocks away, same zip code, and that's the one I always have to go to to pick up packages or forward mail, etc.
Good luck getting any answers down there, though. My experience has been that the workers there give "surly" entirely new dimensions.
I haven't had any problems, but then again about the only things I ever put in the mail anymore are Netflix envelopes, and those I usually mail from my office...
Jason: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/metro/usersguides/dc/PostOff.html
Whoops, 20009 is listed three times there.. so it doesn't actually help you.
Wow, either you have an incredibly photographic memory for random Internet blather, or else you're a former Stasi agent stalking me.
Could be a little bit of both; I was monitoring the hilarity on the smoking thread (I was wondering if they were going to get to 200 comments) and I kept noticing it as I scrolled past.
hillrat you crack me up.
Wow, I'm just getting slathered in DCist love this week.
14th and T post office is just sad. This morning, they only had one clerk working the line at opening, when the line was 10+ people long. There was a guy just sitting there watching the one clerk work.
I mailed a Christmas card to 20009 and it came back to me. I know the address is right, I am positive.
Could be the mail in all of DC is screwy (I live in 20002) 'cause I just got a bundle of mail that looks like it should have gone to the dead letter office.
There used to be a 14th and Irving Post Office. I think it was where the CVS is now. Currently the only evidence of it ever existed (outside your phonebook apparently) is a trivial pursuit question (don't remember which edition):
"What U.S. City has the dubious honor of being home to the only post office in the nation, located at the corner of 14th and Irving streets, ever to be closed because rats were eating the mail?"
Seriously.
I'm pretty sure all Columbia Heights, Petworth, and Mt. Pleasant mail goes through the Georgia Ave Post Office (otherwise known as the place mail goes to die). At least when I lived on Irving that's where mine came from.
"There used to be a 14th and Irving Post Office. I think it was where the CVS is now. "
No, not where the CVS is now. It was on the north side of Irving on the west side of 14th St. The address was Irving St. Had a nice facade - isn't the facade still there, or did it fall into the construction hole?
When they closed it, they found a tractor trailer out back, full of stashed undelivered mail.
(I lived in Mt Pleasant in the 80s. I remember sitting on my balcony and watching the mailman go down the alley with a full mailbag and come back less than a minute later with an empty mailbag. The mail was located in the dumpster. My mail regularly got lost, or returned to the sender with the stamp "No such address" when there was indeed such an address.)
OMGOMGOMGOMG FINALLY! CORROBORATION. I'm at 14th and Clifton, and my mail carrier is an IDIOT. I live in a house with three apartments. A while back our mail carrier decided she couldn't be bothered with putting the mail in the neatly labelled boxes. So my landlord, who is good about taking care of Such Things called the PO to make sure our carrier had the keys, knew about where to put the mail, etc. Things got better for about two weeks, then the mail started being left in an unsorted heap on the stoop again. So we resorted to a snarkedy note asking that the mail carrier kindly not leave our mail in the rain. She responded on the note, "Your mailboxes aren't labelled properly." I'm really not sure what else you need on a mailbox label other than the name and address. In any case, we put up HUGE blue signs with our names and apartment numbers. After that, our mail came in our nicely labelled boxes. This was the week of Christmas. Last week, the mail was being dumped on the stoop again.
The most baffling part? I'm almost positive she is reading my New Yorker.
Columbia Heights needs a post office. I gave up trying to mail my netflix yesterday...and the post box next to me only picks up at 10 a.m.
Jason,
according to dc.gov, your post office is 2300 18th Street NW
DC Citizen Atlas
I recently moved from 13th Street to Spring Road, both within 20010. The mail forwarding service is a joke. If the folks who lived at my previous residence weren't nice people, my health insurance cards would have ended up in the trash.
Re: the mail in the dumpster story above. Isn't not delivering mail a federal offense? I am certain I read, years ago, in the Guinness Book of World Records that the longest prison term ever was for a mail carrier who didn't deliver mail... it was something like seven years per letter. He didn't deliver lots of letters x 7.
Yes, Joclyn, not delivering mail is a crime. But the postal union is absolutely notorious for stonewalling any investigation of its members. It truly is a mafia. There was an interesting essay in a book I read last year (can't remember the author's name) - the Uptown post office in Chicago had a huge number of service complaints, with postal carriers not delivering mail, burning undelivered mail under viaducts, hiding mail in their basements, etc. No one could get anything done until one postal employee decided to fight back and bring things under control, because all the employees covered for each other.
We just put up a post about the mail issues too. Looks like it's a common issue!
I can confirm that Mt. Pleasant, which I believe uses the same Georgia Ave. post office, gets the same shoddy service. Every couple months we have a bill not reach its destination. I try to send things from Cleveland Park if I have time.
I pay all of my bills online. If Netflix ever doesn't believe me that I did, in fact, return their movie, I will just cancel the service. What an amazing joke the postal service in DC seems to be.
(I never had a problem with US mail in NY, not to turn this into one of those threads...)
No, not where the CVS is now. It was on the north side of Irving on the west side of 14th St. The address was Irving St. Had a nice facade - isn't the facade still there, or did it fall into the construction hole?
So that facade is from the old post office building!?? I've been wondering for ages. Are they keeping it because of the post office's notority? Last I walked by it was still standing. Wonder what they'll do with it.
"So that facade is from the old post office building!?? I've been wondering for ages. Are they keeping it because of the post office's notority? Last I walked by it was still standing. Wonder what they'll do with it."
Yep, that's the old Post Office Facade.
I believe they are keeping it because it's cool and historic. I also seem to recall, but cannot confirm by web search, that the facade was part of the construction plan - they were (are?) going to incorporate it into the new stores.
They're keeping that facade because developers get a huge tax credit for incorporating old facades into new buildings. There's a building on 14th stret south of Irving that as recently as a few years ago what entirely a shell- nothing but exterior walls held up by a steel framework. It's since been filled in. They did the same thing with a building on 15th street by the White House.
And yes, Mt. P is served by the Ga Ave post office. I always always always go to Cleveland Park if there's something that's actually important to get mailed.
I too, have had quite a problem with mailcarriers dropping stuff on the stoop upstairs, rather than the mailbox. It only happens every once in a blue moon though, so I assume it's when my regular carrier is out sick/on vacation.