More E-mail, Fewer Mailboxes

mikesd81 writes "Over at the Baltimore Sun there is an article about the post office removing those blue corner mail boxes because of e-mail. From the article: 'As more people send e-mails and pay bills online, the decline in first-class mail is forcing the U.S. Postal Service to remove tens of thousands of underused mailboxes from city streets.' The article goes on to say that the boxes were an American icon: 'You recognize them in Chicago, you recognize them in D.C., you recognize them in Florida, you recognize them in Montana,' Pope said. 'It's a piece of American iconography that has a wonderful history behind it.'" What the article forgets to mention: they're like an American TARDIS for children.

Comments

Re:Mailbox Graveyard?

[Anonymous Coward]

They will melt them down for scrap. They won't sell them because thieves would use them for nefarious purposes, and outside of collecting mail they have little other possible use.

I know every hacker on slashdot will post and tell me how they can turn one into a wet bar, but I doubt if the post office will sell them unless its to somebody who will scrap them.

Character?!?

[RealGrouchy]

Yeah, I've seen the blue mail boxes that they have in the US. They look pretty flimsy and ugly if you ask me. Heck, the ones here in Canada do too.

You want a post box with character? Here is a post box with character. Those red UK ones were made to last long after e-mail renders them useless. Heck, we have one in our downtown just sitting there because it wasn't built, it was designed.

- RG>

TARDIS is quite apt...

[meringuoid]

For those that don't know, the TARDIS is the vehicle piloted by the Doctor in Doctor Who. Its use as a comparison here is quite apt: the TARDIS is disguised as a police box, which was once a common sight on British streets but which, as portable radios took over, fell into obsolescence. There are very few police boxes still around, but once they were so commonplace that a time traveller could disguise his time machine as one and expect it to go unremarked.

Now, it seems the iconic American mailbox is to fall into similar disuse...

Unless, of course, I've completely misunderstood the metaphor. Does the US postal service provide mailboxes which are far larger on the inside than on the outside?