Continuing on from my previous mailbox post, I'd like to show one that I captured on a trip to New York some years ago. We were staying in the venerable Wellington Hotel (now permanently closed, alas) and since it was a century old high-rise hotel, they had a Cutler Mailbox in the lobby which was apparently still in use. These boxes can be found in high rise buildings around the city, and were usually attached to chutes so that people in the floors above the lobby could drop mail into the box without descending to the ground floor. When it worked this was a neat solution, but the chutes were prone to being blocked by clogs, and mail stuck between floors might go undetected for weeks. There were even rubber stamps used by the postal system to explain this as a reason for delayed mail. The ornate chute and box systems have been captured in a lovely book showing their variety. Perhaps a majority of Cutler boxes that exist are no longer in use, but they can be found and are a beautiful reminder of bygone days.
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| Cutler Mail Box: Wellington Hotel, NYC |
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