The newspaper wars: notes from a NYC co-op apartment

Being New Yorkers, Will and I live in an apartment building. Not too large, probably 40 units in total, no doorman. It's a little community, where mostly everybody gets along with one another. And generally residents cooperate and coexist well with the army of people who provide us with the services that make New York City life livable (UPS, FedEx, Fresh Direct, a myriad of food delivery guys on bicycles, dog walkers, nannies, various repair people). And of course the newspaper delivery person.

There's never been an issue with the NY Times delivery person in the six years we have lived in the apartment. And no surprise - what's not to like? The paper comes to peoples' door before they wake up, like magic, it's there!! Unless you're up at 5AM to catch a flight or something, you don't even see the newspaper delivery person.

But then recently, the newspaper magic just suddenly stopped happening.

The papers were instead piled in a big heap by the mailboxes downstairs.

And then nasty notes started to appear downstairs next to the pile of newspapers and the mailboxes:

Wow!! (note my double exclamation mark to match theirs!!) Somebody was really miffed about this having to go fetch their own paper!! Will and I exchanged knowing glances as we left in the morning. (We are digital subscribers, so our paper is "magically" online...no fetching for us.)

After the first sign was posted, there was no response.

Just another pile of papers by the mailboxes the next day.

Another angry note showed up, with similar sentiments and more exclamation marks, this time threatening that the NY Times had been called with a complaint.

But still no response. 

The next day, the papers were again heaped by the mailboxes.

Finally, after the third irate note, we came down the following morning to this note in our lobby:

Touche, Will and I thought. It is rough being a delivery person in NY. Every time you double park and run inside to drop something off, you risk a ticket. If you're delivering an entire neighborhood of newspapers, I would think you would have to pay up on a frequent basis. And I believe those tickets are $85 a pop. Not cheap for anybody, but especially not for a delivery person. UPS and FedEx, etc. absorb the cost of all these tickets for their drivers, but I guess the NY Times does not. 

I had a lot of sympathy for this delivery person.

Things are still at a stand off between the angry subscribers who expect the newspaper at their door when they wake up and the delivery person who is no longer willing to risk a ticket to deliver 10 floors of newspapers to each door... I wonder how this is going to work out?

Mo

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