Mail Still Being Sent to World Trade Center

Although the address on the letters no longer exists, the post office still receives hundreds of letters a day originally intended for people who worked at the World Trade Center. Many of the items are junk mail, but many others, surprisingly, are legitimate communications. Insurance statements, telephone bills, newsletters, club and organization announcements—even government checks. Each one carries the zip code 10048, which was once reserved solely for the twin towers.

Some of the most recognizable organizations and companies in the United States are among the ones sending the mail, more than five years after the towers fell. From retailers to hospitals to charities, most of the mail seems to be the result of businesses not updating their bulk mailing lists, according to U.S. Postal Service spokeswoman Pat McGovern.

The post office that now receives the mail had its windows blown out by flying debris on the morning of September 11, 2001. The trade center’s mail used to start on the ground in the letter carriers’ bags, then travel up higher in the towers, stopping on the 68th floor, the 89th floor, then the 104th floor. But the mail to be delivered that morning never made it to its destination, staying safe with the letter carriers as they watched the horrific demise of the Twin Towers and the deaths of thousands.

Rafael Feliciano delivered mail to the south tower for three years. He and a co-worker sat in a bar several blocks away on 9/11 and watched the tower fall on television. "He turned to me and said, ‘You just lost your route,’" Feliciano recalls. After he was allowed back into the post office, he searched the faces of office workers who came to pick up their mail, looking for familiar faces to see who had survived. Feliciano is perplexed that mail still comes to the address. "It’s been five years later," he said. "How many people don’t know the towers are gone?"

Seprina Jones-Sims took over Feliciano’s trade center mail after he left his route to become a driver. Jones gets to work at 5:00 a.m. to begin sorting the mail among white plastic trays labeled with company names. Between 2001 and 2002, the total weekly volume of mail dropped from 1.2 million pieces to just under half a million, but it has risen slightly in the years since then. "I guess sooner or later they'll realize the towers aren't back up," said Jones-Sims. "I don't know when."

Several companies pay for a service that requires the post office to hold the mail until a messenger picks it up. Some of the mail is returned to the sender, and some is forwarded to the company’s current address. Normally the post office would not forward mail from a nonexistent address five years later, but they are making an exception with the trade center mail. Any mail that is not forwarded or returned is sent to a Brooklyn recycling firm to be destroyed.

Although the neighborhood around the Church Street station is slowly beginning to regain lost ground, the continuing flood of mail addressed to trade center victims is a grim reminder of thousands of unfinished lives. "You start flashing back to that day," said Feliciano, who can no longer handle entering tall buildings. "That’s why I got off the routes. It’s like a movie that plays over and over in your head."