This past summer, postal collection boxes in the Village of East Hills were removed by the local post office.

Such actions have not been popular with residents. A number of them have written letters of protest to the Roslyn Heights post office on Mineola Avenue. In one instance, residents who knew in advance that their collection box would be removed even formed a human link of sorts around the box, holding hands in a futile effort to keep it from being taken away from their neighborhood.

Representatives of the East Park Civic Association themselves have met with Pat Murphy, director of customer service for the Roslyn Heights post office. Civic association members had heard that the reason for the removals might be an "underutilization" of the collection boxes. During their meeting, Murphy showed the members research indicating that there was indeed "low usage" at the East Hills boxes. Murphy told The Roslyn News that to stay viable, collection boxes should receive up to 100 letters per day. In a survey done from June 9 through June 15, the East Hills boxes averaged 20-25 letters a day, he said. Either way, removing collection boxes has become a nationwide trend. Up to 500,000 such boxes from all across the nation have been uprooted from their longtime stations.

According to civic association members, Murphy did sympathize with their beliefs that the boxes should be measured in how they serve the public, not necessarily in mail volume. Post office personnel on Long Island held a regional meeting on Sept. 10. There, Murphy intended to relay the feelings of East Hills residents to regional authorities.

Copies of the letters sent to the post office were made available to The Roslyn News. Most letter writers said the removals were creating a real inconvenience, especially for the village's many senior citizens.

One resident observed that without the collection boxes, people would have to walk across a "very busy" Roslyn Road, a place "treacherous to cross on foot" in order to reach another box. Others wrote that people would now have to drive to a crowded shopping center with limited parking. Another writer noted that East Hills is a "small, isolated community." And as it borders both the Long Island Expressway and the Northern State Parkway, there are no "easily accessible sidewalks or paths leading out of the neighborhood."

Letter writers also expressed their discomfort of having to leave mail in their slots where it might be "pilfered" by "unscrupulous people." One writer claimed to be "not at ease" with the prospect of leaving mail in a letter box, while another said using the mail box was not safe and certainly unfair to the mail carrier."

Other writers complained of how the post office handled the situation. One writer noted that their household received "no warning" about the collection box being removed, while another also observed that no letters were sent to local residents. In addition, a resident wrote that no public meetings with input from East Hills took place before the boxes disappeared.

Finally, letter writers claimed that residents had lost a part of their community with the removals. In addition to its practical service, the collection box was also a "place to meet neighbors." Others noted that the collection box in the East Park section had been there at least since the early 1950s. "We may be a small community, but we still are entitled to have a mailbox for outgoing mail," one resident stated.