I remember how the Post Office once worked

[Amethyst]

We also got a.m. and p.m. mail when we lived in the UK in a small city.

I think the UK has done many things the same way for two hundred years. Many farming areas, particularly in the North, look almost exactly as they do in illustrations in Jane Austen/Thomas Hardy novels. I'm not sure that is the case in the U.S.

Yes, this would be highly dependent on the locality.

I remember reading the Sherlock Holmes stories, and they'd talk about getting the morning and afternoon mail - two deliveries a day. Seemed odd to me, like they were more advanced then than we are now? But then my Mom said they got mail 2x a day in Chicago when she was a kid.

-ERD50

 

[ziggy29]

We have a member here who works at a post office so hopefully he'll chime in. I'm not sure if it is required by the P.O., but I'm pretty sure it is encouraged because of the cost savings to the P.O. Our house was built in 2002 and we have a mailbox on a post out by the driveway, and by that time I had seen housing developments with the cluster mailboxes.

Much of it is cost savings, yes -- as first class mail revenues have declined some service cuts were deemed necessary, and that includes cluster boxes.

In reality, at the PO where I work a bit (small country town, population about 2,000), many of the customers on the route have submitted written delivery instructions to hold all parcels at the PO for pickup, or else they have a PO box, mostly for concerns about theft.

 

[athena53]

I think all neighborhood cluster boxes accept outgoing mail. Is that an option?

The problem is theft. Sure, a dishonest postal employee could unload a box and go through it looking for stuff to steal, but the real risk is people stealing from an individual mail box: birthday cards with gift cards inside, bills or other mailings containing info handy for identity thieves, etc. Can't do much about that in my incoming mail but if I have anything like that going out, it goes directly to the Post Office, which is fortunately on my daily route between home and the gym. I couldn't tell you where to find a free-standing box: they're gone.

 

[Alan]

We also got a.m. and p.m. mail when we lived in the UK in a small city.

I think the UK has done many things the same way for two hundred years. Many farming areas, particularly in the North, look almost exactly as they do in illustrations in Jane Austen/Thomas Hardy novels. I'm not sure that is the case in the U.S.

There is only 1 delivery a day these days but you are right about all the small towns looking the same as they did hundreds of years ago. Even though the post office was privatized in 2013 it still has the same look and feel it always had and the Government requires 99% of UK population to be within 3 miles of nearest post office and it is close to being being profitable for the first time in a decade.

https://www.ft.com/content/a7631946-0b33-11e7-97d1-5e720a26771b

 

[Amethyst]

At one time, the sales pitch for cluster boxes was that they would "draw neighbors closer together." Supposedly, people would meet and talk to each other while picking up the mail. Ha ha ha, what a notion.

Much of it is cost savings, yes -- as first class mail revenues have declined some service cuts were deemed necessary, and that includes cluster boxes.

In reality, at the PO where I work a bit (small country town, population about 2,000), many of the customers on the route have submitted written delivery instructions to hold all parcels at the PO for pickup, or else they have a PO box, mostly for concerns about theft.

 

[MRG]

The problem is theft. Sure, a dishonest postal employee could unload a box and go through it looking for stuff to steal, but the real risk is people stealing from an individual mail box: birthday cards with gift cards inside, bills or other mailings containing info handy for identity thieves, etc. Can't do much about that in my incoming mail but if I have anything like that going out, it goes directly to the Post Office, which is fortunately on my daily route between home and the gym. I couldn't tell you where to find a free-standing box: they're gone.

Our outgoing mail from the cluster is in a one way drop box. Not a true post box but once in, its secure. Of course parcels are either a trip to the post office or UPS.

Yea as a kid we didn't use zip codes. Your name, road, RD#, were all that was needed.

Of course I remember DM buying "airmail stamps" to send mail to my sister in CA. and my bother in the Navy. I'm not sure if it helped my brothers delivery time.

 

[cathy63]

Yeah, that's a definite degradation in service. My house in NJ was built in the 1950s and had a mailbox at the door. Loved it. Does anyone know- what forced the current trends? In other words, why do builders/developers cluster all the mail boxes together in a common location? Is it that much cheaper than putting individual mail boxes at each door, or does the Post Office require it?

A few years ago when we were having the outside of our home remodeled, I asked the P.O. for permission to install a mail slot next to the front door to replace the wall box that was in the same spot. They said no because their regulations for improving the efficiency of delivery require that all new mail boxes are either in central clusters or if that's not possible they have to be located at the curb and reachable from a mail truck.

I appealed the denial, pointing out that it doesn't make sense to put a curbside box facing the street in our neighborhood when the carrier walks on the sidewalk as she delivers to all the other front doors and said I'd just put back the old mailbox on the wall if they didn't approve the slot. They gave in, and we got the mail slot, which is extremely convenient.

 

[sanfanciscotreat]

We got our mail addressed as

Name
RFD
City, State

No street name or number
Very small town post office

 

[braumeister]

Hey, I was also Brooklyn 29, NY. Maybe we were close neighbors. I lived on Batchelder St.

Sent you a pm

 

[GalaxyBoy]

I do have memories of TV commercials telling you to be sure to use ZIP codes on both the main address and the return address of a letter.

Funny how these threads fire random synapses in my brain.

 

[athena53]

A few years ago when we were having the outside of our home remodeled, I asked the P.O. for permission to install a mail slot next to the front door to replace the wall box that was in the same spot. They said no because their regulations for improving the efficiency of delivery require that all new mail boxes are either in central clusters or if that's not possible they have to be located at the curb and reachable from a mail truck.

Ah- so there is an element of coercion from the USPS that explains why there are no more mailboxes by the door in new construction! Thanks.

 

[lwp2017]

I live in the country, our nearest post office has less than a hundred boxes.
For years it was in the back room of an old independent, Sinclair gas station until they closed the gas station. The boxes had the little combo locks.

The current postmaster knows my DW and I by name and will usually call our home when we get a package too big for the PO box that we have to pickup during window hours.
A nice perk living in the sticks.

We like to bring her homemade cookies and fresh fruit from our orchard.

 

[Rustward]

<snip> The days of knowing your mail person unfortunately are over.

Not everywhere.

 

[meierlde]

Ah- so there is an element of coercion from the USPS that explains why there are no more mailboxes by the door in new construction! Thanks.

Given the amount of loss the post office is running, the 50% plus annual savings on a cluster box over door to door delivery make sense given that raising rates would only reduce mail volume futher. (Consider all the financial institutions that want you to go paperless for statements which cuts the mail volume or bill pay which cuts the return mail volume for paying bills.) The post office considered doing away with standard saturday delivery recently and if they do it all that will be left is saturday amazon deliveries. Note that the end of door to door delivery to subdivisions in favor of curb side rural boxes is over 40 years old. And in the subdivision where I now live which is 31 years old the cluster mail boxes went in.

 

[Mr._Graybeard]

Ah- so there is an element of coercion from the USPS that explains why there are no more mailboxes by the door in new construction! Thanks.

There aren't many walking mail carriers anymore, except in densely populated urban neighborhoods. Carriers are driving, covering a lot of ground. They don't have time to go door to door.

 

[GalaxyBoy]

My Aunt lives in a typical 1960s suburb and still has a walking mailperson who delivers mail in a wall-mounted mailbox next to the front door. It’s always a bit disconcerting to me when we’re in her living room chatting and suddenly there’s a strange man in front of the window.

 

[MikeD]

I used to correspond with then GF-Now-Wife back in the very early '70s via postal mail. we were not able to talk on the phone when we were separated when she was away at college due to cost. I lived in a rural town in upstate NY and the mailman would come between 3 and 3:30 pm. I would wait nearby, sitting on a rock wall, every day in case I got a letter.

Later, I moved to her college town, Radford, Va to be nearer. I worked at the college stable literally shoveling horse manure for minimum wage, full time.

I discovered a need to go to school.

A friend in 7th grade named Beth-Ann did an experiment. She had her father mail a card to her from NYC where he worked with just

Beth-Ann
10516

written on it. She got it the next day.

 

[Tree-dweller]

Slot in the front door for me too. I cut it myself and installed the spring-loaded cover maybe 15 years ago, replacing the exterior wall mounted box I had grown paranoid about. Still greet the carrier on occasion, and often give him outgoing mail, but there is a blue dropbox outside the supermarket. Cluster boxes? I would not like that.

 

[athena53]

..,but there is a blue dropbox outside the supermarket.

Those are few and far between-very annoying. I don't leave anything valuable in my mailbox (and that includes anything with info identity thieves could use) so it's annoying hoe few there are now. Fortunately, the Post Office is between my home and the gym.

 

[street]

I live in the country, our nearest post office has less than a hundred boxes.
For years it was in the back room of an old independent, Sinclair gas station until they closed the gas station. The boxes had the little combo locks.

The current postmaster knows my DW and I by name and will usually call our home when we get a package too big for the PO box that we have to pickup during window hours.
A nice perk living in the sticks.

We like to bring her homemade cookies and fresh fruit from our orchard.

This is what I grew up with and the way that PO runs today is pretty much the same way. Hours have changed etc. but still has the combo boxes post master knows everyone by name and things are so simple. Rural life in small town America is a wonderful experience. LOL

 

[mamadogmamacat]

Box at the end of the driveway. small subdivision with acre plus lots so we are among the last delivered to each day well into the evening. sucks when it is dark wet and cold, but then again the delivery person probably feels the same way about it. Up until two years ago I did know my mail carrier, same man for 18 yrs. He got a card and a small gift each year from several of us homeowners. Since then, it seems to be a different person most all the time, and I on occasion get my neighbors mail and they get mine, which never happened when "Butch" was on the job. for some small packages UPS hands off to the post office, and twice they have either been late with delivery or i had a package go missing for a while in the USPS system. tried to explain to ups that this arrangement is hurting their reputation. No FEDEX delivery has yet been done that way for me. In childhood I do remember multiple daily deliveries in both suburban and rural areas.

On the other hand, it is in some ways a rather unpleasant thankless job. I have a cousin who before ER worked for the PO. He was at the branch that got the anthrax back when that nut what's his name was sending it. One worker at that branch died as a result. Fortunately for my family it was not my cousin.

 

[tinlizzy]

We had a mailbox on our corner growing up.

My brother Eric carried around a white stuffed toy kitty and when he was busy playing or was afraid of the older kids taking his stuffed animal he would put it in the mailbox for safe keeping. The mailman would get it out when he was collecting the letters from the box and deliver it to our house with the mail!

 

[atmsmshr]

My hometown post office has a large mural high on the walls. Evidentially either the state of Pennsylvania or the Roosevelt administration commissioned these paintings during the construction of depression era post offices. The style of federalist brick exterior with high ceilings and interior murals is common in PA.

 

[Aerides]

I grew up in the UK with a front-door-mail-slot, and twice-daily mail deliveries... "maybe it'll come in the evening post..."

I live in suburbia US now, box at end of driveway, my carrier will typically drive up to my front door to deliver packages. She will take away my outgoing mail and always scans things as picked up. If I miss her and have something outgoing that day I can usually find another carrier still doing their route to hand off. Never use a drop off bin.

I try to always be friendly with my neighborhood carriers, if I ever need a favor or have an issue, they are quick to help.

 

[Lcountz]

Box at end of driveway....but I can remember living in Queens in 1965 to 1972 we had a brass slot in the door....

We also had a summer place where every day we'd run to the box to get the mail and the NY Times which was delivered. We were voracious readers in those days!!!! We had no teevee or radio at summer house-we PLAYED. ( remember that?!?!?!?)

To the Brooklyn 29 folks....I can't remember that part of the address in Queens, but I DO remember the phone number to this day...it started with "VI" as in Virginia.

I went to PS 113. JHS 119 and RIchmond Hill HS in Queens before we moved out of NYC.....!!! It seems like a MILLION years ago!!!

Not about the PO, but I remember my Dad taking us to see the first 747's take off,watching from a pull off area on Woodhaven Blvd, and I remember him taking us to see the World Trade Center being built. THAT seems like a million years ago too.