Metro-east post office closed with no home delivery. It’s not the first time
The small community of Brooklyn’s post office recently closed its doors with no warning and no timeline for reopening.
With no home delivery service in the village of 650 people, residents are forced to travel to an East St. Louis post office to pick up their mail, according to Village Mayor Trenton Atkins.
He said it’s not the first time this has happened to residents in Brooklyn, also known as Lovejoy.
“It’s been an on-and-off issue that we’ve been having way before I got in office,” said Atkins, who was elected mayor in 2025. “It’s an awful thing.”
A U.S. Postal Service spokesperson said the building is undergoing repairs with no set date for reopening in a statement to KSDK. A sign on the post office door directing residents to pick up their mail in East St. Louis is dated April 16.
USPS representatives didn’t respond to requests from the BND for further comment about the specific repairs needed or community frustrations about ongoing issues with building access.
“We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused our customers,” the USPS spokesperson wrote in the statement to the TV station.
Atkins and longtime Brooklyn resident Merla Diane Simmons said the post office has also closed for repairs in the past after a car crashed into the building and after animal infestations.
But this time, Atkins said the closure “threw everybody for a loop.”
“It’s been rehabbed. It’s been fixed.” Atkins said of the building. “... We didn’t see anything wrong with it.”
He said he has since heard reports of “a smell.”
USPS leases the post office building at 413 S. 3rd St. in Brooklyn from a limited liability company owner called Midwestern Postal Realty Holdings, according to county property records. Representatives from the LLC didn’t respond to requests for comment about the local post office building.
Midwestern Postal Realty Holdings is a subsidiary of the New York-based real estate investment trust called Postal Realty Trust. The trust boasts having the “largest portfolio of properties leased to the USPS,” which it describes as a reliable tenant in messages to potential investors on its website.
The trust purchased the Brooklyn post office in 2019 for $85,453, county records show. The building is one of the trust’s 1,943 properties across the country, including 99 in Illinois, according to investment portfolio statistics from February.
Community seeking solutions to mail issues
Atkins raised concerns about the temporary solution directing Brooklyn residents to the East St. Louis post office. Some of them can’t find a way to travel there, he said.
During a past closure, he said residents were able to pick up mail closer to home at the community’s senior center.
The mayor said he’s also been frustrated by a lack of communication about the post office. He only learned of the most recent closure when citizens called Village Hall about it, he said.
“What upset me was I had to initiate the communication part,” Atkins said. “If you’re going to close it, at least give me a call.”
Atkins said he planned to reach out to elected officials, including state Sen. Chris Belt and U.S. Rep. Nikki Budzinski, about long-term solutions. He suggested possibilities including community mailboxes known as cluster boxes, with locked compartments for each person’s mail, or a new building for the post office.
“At least lease a building that’s viable,” Atkins said.
Even when the building is open, Atkins and Simmons said residents sometimes can’t access the post office because employees work inconsistent hours, not opening for business at 7:30 a.m. as advertised. Deliveries are also delayed at times, they said.
Simmons said she picked up a letter on April 22 that had been postmarked on March 4, more than a month earlier.
“Where had that piece of mail been prior?” Simmons said. “... I just want my mail.”
