Thursday, July 28, 2016

The Case of the Disappearing Mailboxes


The U.S. Post Office has been dealing with financial hardship for several years, mainly because a Republican Congress, which wants to privatize the postal service, has put a huge financial burden on the USPS by requiring the latter to have on hand enough funds to cover a variety of expenses forecasted for the future.

One result of all this is that the blue mailboxes which used to be on about every corner of the city, have, with a few exceptions, disappeared. It's a cost-saving measure. The mailboxes shown in this post are located in the parking lot of the Paddock Mall. Actually, that's a good place to have them as people can drop their mail off when they come to shop at the mall.

14 comments:

William Kendall said...

Just one of the many reasons to smack the Republicans upside the head.

Bill said...

The An Post system over here acts like a store. They sell items, you can pay your utility bills, television license fee, property tax, dog licence, court fines, garda fines, tags for tolls, transfer money, buy dollars or sterling. They only deliver mail M-F and if you happen to see your postman out on the street, he or she will greet you, have a conversation, and hand you your mail. Here, your mail person knows your name and where you live. It's a friendly service with friendly people. Unfortunately they have closed some rural an posts. Our An Post is very small, still functioning and we have a cool older postman.

Kay said...

I appreciate the convenience of mailboxes like this. Around here we have them at our two local post offices and in the parking lots of two small shopping centers (that are across the street from each other). But we're rural.

magiceye said...

Ah for the pleasure of receiving snail mail!

Linda said...

I like these blue mailboxes.

Petrea Burchard said...

Thanks, Lowell. Interesting "post." The mailboxes are hard to find in southern California, too. We still have mail delivery to our homes each day, which is a great service.

Francisco Manuel Carrajola Oliveira said...

Muito interessante.
Um abraço e bom fim de semana.
Andarilhar

Andy said...

Mail delivery is quickly becoming a thing of the past worldwide. The big items now are all those parcels form online shopping.

PerthDailyPhoto said...

I agree Lowell, shopping centres or just outside shopping centres is the perfect spot for the few remaining post boxes. We still have a few around the streets but not many.

Tanya Breese said...

i would hate to see the post office go out of business...a lot of my bills i still pay the old fashioned way, mail a check just to keep them going lol...but they have downsized the big post office in roanoke that sorted mail and now our mail goes all the way to greensboro nc even if i mail it across the street which is silly...

Judy said...

I have noticed the same thing.
I kind of miss getting a real letter in the mail from a friend or relative. Even getting a birthday card is a rare thing.

Sharon said...

I've noticed the same thing. I've also noticed more and more private post office stores. I stopped at one recently to buy some stamps and discovered they didn't have any even though they had a U. S. Post Office sign out front.

RedPat said...

There are fewer of them here than there used to be but there are still quite a few around. Our post office now makes most of its money from parcel delivery as Andy had mentioned.

Kate said...

I have always felt that we have had superb service for bargain prices from our postal service!

"Photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth which can make them come back again." — Henri Cartier-Bresson