A year after fire, rural post office remains closed

WEST KILL―More than a year after a fire damaged the West Kill Post Office, the letter center remains shuttered, resulting in significant inconvenience for many postal customers.

Since January of 2025, deliveries to roadside mailboxes have continued uninterrupted. But West Kill in-house box holders and those with signature-required items or oversized articles have been forced to traverse 10 miles through the sometimes perilous Notch to pick up their mail in Shandaken rather than enjoying a much simpler and shorter drive to the nearby hamlet of Lexington.

“It hasn’t been a good situation,” said Lexington Town Supervisor Bob Riccardella who recently reported that productive talks are happening with Congressman Josh Riley’s (NY-19) office in an effort to fix the problem.

It is hoped that the conversations will culminate in a fresh delivery plan for the USPS which currently uses two different maps for the respective hamlets of West Kill and Lexington.

Letters and packages for West Kill are routed thru Phoenicia to Shandaken. Similar items for Lexington first go to Hunter. But there is a shared origination in Kingston, so the vision is to have the USPS unite forces, dropping off everything in the hamlet of Lexington.

The shift could potentially kill two proverbial birds with one stone―the local post offices are in service only part-time, one for morning hours and the other for afternoon hours.

Dispatching the mail to one location would potentially allow the Lexington office to be open full-time, employing two part-time postal workers.

A representative from Riley’s office has already visited the town.

“We took them on a ride so they could see how long it is for folks who rely on the mail,” Riccardella said. “We took him through the Notch on a good day so he could imagine what it’s like on a bad day.”

The fire broke out on the afternoon of Saturday, January 18, 2025. The cause was deemed to have been electrical, starting in in a back section of the building used as a garage and for storage by the landlord.

No injuries were reported and while the building was saved, it suffered water and smoke damage.

“We will stay on top of this. We feel the congressman needs to step in,” Riccardella said.