UPS Will Not Deliver to the Doors of Nearly 1,500 Units

When residents of the Fox Hill and Park Hill Apartments in Clifton order online, or are sent a gift they hold their breath until they know what delivery company will be delivering their parcel. Amazon comes to their doors, so does DHL, FedEx and the U.S. Postal Service. UPS, however will not, pointing to an incident that happened four decades ago in 1985 where a delivery driver was assaulted. Instead, a UPS truck will park outside of 240 Park Hill Avenue for 45 minutes to two hours a day for residents of the surrounding eleven buildings to line up and pick up their packages.

The Fox Hill Apartment complex consists of three, six-story buildings on Vanderbilt and Park Hill Avenues. Originally built in 1965, the complex consists of 362 apartments. The Park Hill Apartments complex consists of eight, six-story buildings also along Park Hill Avenue. The Park Hill Apartment complex contains 1,100 units and were also privately developed in the 1960s. Both complexes experienced steadily increasing crime in the early-1970s through the late-1980s, but crime has steadily decreased in the area since the late 1990s.

The UPS truck arrives at 10:30 AM most mornings. Residents line up, no matter the weather, and wait their turn. When they are called they must provide the identification of the person receiving the package, so folks often carry the ID of a relative who is at work, or an elder incapable of walking then waiting in line.

Gordon Flowers has a catch phrase "what you're not changing, you are choosing." He moved to Park Hill in 2011, but later moved to the Fox Hills Complex after an injury necessitated a walker, and a more accessible apartment. Flowers began ordering more online after his injury, and only became aware of UPS' policy when packages weren't arriving to his door. Unwilling to accept UPS' treatment of him and his neighbors, he resolved to make change. He began with circulating a petition to Fox Hill and Park Hill residents to demand door-to-door delivery service, collecting 175 signatures. When Park Hill residents began coordinating a Tenants Association to organize for the maintenance needs in their units, Flowers again began to raise the challenges around UPS deliveries and built more relationships in the community. Those efforts led to a class-action lawsuit Flowers filed in 2024, seeking to end the practice that lawyers claim discriminates against the predominantly non-white residents of the apartment complexes. According to The New York Times:

In October 2024, Mr. Flowers became the main plaintiff in the lawsuit filed in Brooklyn, which claims that UPS’s practice discriminates against residents of the buildings, 99 percent of whom the suit says are not white. The company delivers to other similarly sized apartment buildings in northeastern Staten Island with higher proportions of white residents, according to the filing, violating state and city laws.

The lawsuit seeks compensation and that UPS provide the same services that it gives to other multifamily buildings on the island.

"It's annoying," says Salvatore DiPaola who has lived in the complex for 41 years, now at 350 Vanderbilt Avenue, "It's not easy for me, when you go there is a line, you have to stand in the rain, in the cold.. it's crazy."

Flowers has reached out to all his elected officials on this issue, but thus far many are unwilling to fight UPS on behalf of their constituents. State Senator Jessica Scarcella-Spanton, and District Attorney Michael McMahon led a press conference on June 16 in support of the residents' battle with UPS. Senator Charles Schumer, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Assemblymember Charles Fall, and Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis have not yet returned Flowers' calls or e-mails. Flowers asserts that when he recently approached Councilmember Kamillah Hanks at a community event to shake her hand and request her support, Hanks withdrew her hand and replied "Black people need to be educated on who does what." The Councilperson's office declined to comment on Hanks' position on the residents' fight, or her alleged remarks to Flowers.

Flowers is undeterred by the political apathy he's witnessed on this important issue. In recent years, UPS has handled about 25 percent of all packages that are shipped daily across the United States. Aware of the stakes if he is victorious, he and his neighbors continue the struggle for justice. Until then, Fox Hill and Park Hill residents of all ages and abilities will be waiting outside in the extreme heat and elements.