Porch Pirates could soon have a harder time stealing from online shoppers in Sunset Park, as the neighborhood now has its first NYCLocker.
Residents will now be able to order packages that will sit behind closed doors, rather than out on the street.
Nestor Rodriguez is the manager of the City Fresh Market, located near the storage locker.
Rodriguez says residents often asked the store to hold packages to help protect them from being swiped.
"We have many people asking, and now they happy, they can keep the package, and no one is going through them, and it brings customers to the area," he said.
Residents say that just this week, a string of packages had been stolen along 6th Avenue, where the new locker sits.
"We saw packages were missing in our building group chat, and then we saw it was the whole block which was alarming," said resident Sylvia, who says the new location is convenient for running errands and gives her more confidence to order items.
"Returns for stolen items can be difficult and if it's eBay, it's one of one. I was actually going to order a hard drive, and I was debating if I should ship that to my house," she said.
She's not alone.
"I had an $80 package broken into, they opened the tables, they didn't take anything, but anything we order, it's always opened," said resident Kevin Hernandez. "I support this because this is a good area, it's convenient, and I think this will stop people taking packages with these cameras."
Residents are able to select the locker as an address upon ordering online and are given a unique PIN that unlocks only their package.
According to DOT, the area was chosen based on a lack of package protection sites, NYPD data and Google search data that tracked the number of people searching for a secure site for their packages.
According to DOT, over 90,000 packages are misplaced or stolen daily.
A total of 1,400 users have signed up for the service since its launch.