West Kill has gone 18 months without its own post office, and residents in this small Greene County hamlet say the U.S. Postal Service's fix has made things worse, not better: a required drive through a narrow, cell-service-free mountain pass just to pick up mail. The closure followed a January 2025 electrical fire in a building next to the leased post office facility on Spruceton Road, and it has left a hamlet of roughly a couple hundred residents without the retail counter many depended on for everything from packages to prescriptions.
According to NEWS10 ABC, USPS closed the West Kill Post Office after the fire caused damage, and retail postal service was transferred to the Shandaken Post Office in neighboring Ulster County. The West Kill Post Office building itself was not destroyed in the blaze — but the post office it once housed was effectively gone. As Lexington Town Supervisor Robert Riccardella put it in comments carried by NEWS10, “the building was saved but the post office was lost.” West Kill first got a post office in 1833, according to historical records compiled by Cairo Historical Society researcher Sylvia Hasenkopf and reported by The Overlook, underscoring just how long the hamlet has relied on a mail facility of its own.
A Fire, Smoke Damage, and a Landlord Who Moved On
The fire that triggered the closure broke out in an adjacent building in January 2025, and while the post office structure suffered no direct fire damage, it did sustain heavy smoke damage, according to a Lexington Fire Department official cited by the same Overlook report. Riccardella, who responded to the fire as a volunteer firefighter, became Lexington's town supervisor in January 2026 and has prioritized reopening the West Kill Post Office ever since taking office.
USPS initially sought to restore service to the damaged facility, but the agency could not reach terms with the landlord of the leased building. The property owner stopped responding to postal restoration inquiries and indicated the space would not be made available for rent again, USPS told Porcupine Soup News in a statement reported by that outlet. With no available alternate sites in West Kill, per Riccardella, USPS says it has since initiated a search for alternate quarters but has provided no timeline for completing that search.
Why Shandaken Instead of Lexington
Rather than shifting retail operations to the Lexington Post Office, just 4.1 miles away, USPS instead redirected West Kill's P.O. Box operations roughly seven miles off to Shandaken because officials deemed it “better operationally,” according to a USPS response letter reported by Porcupine Soup News. That decision means residents now have to drive through what locals call the Deep Notch, also known as West Kill Notch or Echo Notch, along State Route 42 to reach their mail.
That stretch of road lacks cellular phone service and becomes hazardous during winter weather, as reported by The Mountain Eagle. Riccardella has said the Notch is dangerous from January through April, and both he and West Kill resident John Enochty want the temporary Shandaken arrangement moved instead to the Lexington Post Office, which they argue is the safer destination. Enochty, who lives across the street from the shuttered West Kill Post Office, told NEWS10 that the building had served as a community space and meeting place — a role the hamlet has lost along with its mail counter.
Community and Federal Pressure Build
Frustration boiled over on August 8, when more than 40 residents rallied outside the Lexington Post Office alongside Greene County Sheriff Pete Kusminsky to demand the return of local mail services, according to The Overlook. Protesters carried signs reading “Bring Our Mail Home” and “USPS: Give Us Back Our Mail!”
The pressure campaign has climbed well beyond the hamlet itself. On June 30, U.S. Representative Josh Riley, who represents New York's 19th Congressional District, co-signed a letter with Riccardella accusing USPS of a “bureaucratic runaround” over the prolonged service suspension, the same Overlook report notes. Then, on August 20, U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer escalated matters further, sending a formal letter to Postmaster General David Steiner demanding USPS immediately reinstate postal services in West Kill or secure a nearby location — citing the lack of transparency from USPS after 19 months of closure.
The Regulation Behind the Delay
USPS has relied on 39 CFR § 241.3, a federal regulation that permits an “emergency suspension” of a retail facility due to fire, natural disaster, or lease cancellation when no suitable alternate quarters exist in the community, according to the Legal Information Institute. The provision allows the agency to shift operations immediately without a formal public discontinuance study, though such suspensions tend to draw scrutiny when a temporary closure stretches on indefinitely — exactly the situation West Kill now finds itself in a year and a half later.
Riccardella has said he received support from representatives including Schumer as he pushes for a resolution, and he remains committed to reopening the West Kill Post Office. For now, rural carrier delivery to the hamlet continues uninterrupted, but with no timeline from USPS on finding replacement retail quarters, residents like Enochty are left waiting — and, when they need to visit a counter in person, still facing a drive through the Notch.
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