To prevent deliveries from disappearing from porches, Napoleon Suarez ’04 thinks outside the box.
Some people get famous for dancing in airports on TikTok, others for posing on fanciful pool floats on Instagram. Napoleon Suarez ’04 found a loyal following on YouTube, posting videos about life at the neighborhood mailbox store he runs in Philadelphia.
In one video, Suarez unveils the biggest package ever to arrive at the shop. In another, he describes how he raised money to start up the store, including selling a pile of shoes: “I was a big ‘sneaker head’ at the time. I had probably over a hundred pairs,” he says in the video. “I’m talking about all the hype stuff — all the Jordans, all the Air Maxes, the LeBrons. Some of them I hadn’t even worn before.”
This year, Suarez is celebrating the 10-year anniversary of his mailbox store, Fishbox, a place where people can arrange to have their letters or packages delivered — an extremely helpful service in a city where boxes often get swiped from stoops by “porch pirates.”
It’s a big problem in cities like Philly: A box gets plopped on a front step and disappears within minutes. People have tried all kinds of things to thwart the thieves — setting up lockers outside the front door or leaving notes for carriers to hide boxes in a trash can or behind a plant.
Originally published by Notre Dame Magazine at magazine.nd.edu in its Summer 2025 issue.
Originally published by at somos.nd.edu on July 30, 2025.
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