Mail chute

Empire State Building active mail chutes, 2007

Akron, Ohio, Law Building active mail chute, 2019

Cutler letter box with door hinges, 2012

A mail chute is an outdated letter collection device used in multi-story office buildings, hotels, apartment buildings and other high-rise structures. Letters and postcards were dropped through mail deposit slots from the upper stories of a high-rise building and collected (usually at the first level) at a central depository by the postal service. This invention was before the time of the modern mailroom associated nowadays with high-rise buildings. The chute was for the convenience of the residents, workers, and public at the building so they would not have to take their outgoing mail to a mailbox or to the local post office.

Architect James Goold Cutler invented this new type of mail delivery in 1883. He formed a company and was the only maker of mail chutes and the associated collection receiving boxes for the first 20 years of existence. Cutler manufactured thousands of these systems over the decades that were installed in many high-rise buildings across the United States. The National Fire Protection Association has not allowed mail chutes from being put into new buildings after 1997. Beginning at about the same time, many of the buildings that had them have closed off their mail chutes and no longer use them. Today, there are about 900 active mail chute systems in New York City high-rise buildings and 360 buildings in Chicago that still use them.

Original design and usage

Architect James Goold Cutler planned and directed the construction of the seven-story Elwood Building in downtown Rochester, New York. In his architectural work in 1879, he conceived the idea of having a mail system that would relieve the tenants of the hardship of taking their office mail to the street mailbox at the end of each day. What evolved was a built-in mail chute. He had carpenters build a wooden prototype and presented that to the United States Post Office Department and architects of high-rise office buildings. The feedback obtained was incorporated into his design.

Cutler applied for a patent on his invention and received US patent 284,951 for a mail chute collection system on September 11, 1883. It was a new type of mail delivery system in an office building or apartment building of several stories. It consisted of a mailbox and a vertical channel chute through which letters were moved by means of gravity. His invention was a wall-mounted container on the ground floor of a high-rise building which was fed by a glass-paneled vertical tube the height of the building. Letters to be mailed would be deposited through slots on the channel on each floor and would fall loosely to the first floor to be collected in a mailbox. The chute was designed so it could be opened to free up any letters that got stuck in the falling process. The Post Office required the chutes be constructed with at least three-quarters of the front made of glass so that the postal workers could locate and dislodge any trapped mail.

The idea behind the mail chute was that letters and other paper objects like postcards to be mailed could be delivered at the first floor and higher floors of a building by the sender without having to personally hand-carry the object to the building mailroom. The occupants of a building no longer had to find a mailbox on the street to deposit their mail as the local post office collected the mail deposited at the first floor of a building by the mail chutes.

The Elwood Building experiment was a success; as a result it was installed in New York City high-rise office buildings and railroad stations. Eventually Cutler then started the Cutler Manufacturing Company to make mail chutes and collection boxes. The company later became Cutler Mail Chute Company and produced over 1,600 systems for buildings over the next 20 years. The Post Office Department then had Cutler mail chutes placed in hotels over five stories tall. The systems were also installed in apartment buildings of over 50 units.

Cutler received a silver medal at the 1883 Cincinnati Industrial Exposition and a special award at the 1884 New Orleans exposition. He received over 30 patents for modifications of his mail chute system. The original approved patent design stated that the first-floor mailbox must be made of metal and marked U.S. Letter Box with a slot labeled letters. The mailbox had to have a door that opened on hinges, with the door bottom not less than 2 feet 6 inches (76 cm) off the floor. If the structure where the mail chute collection system was installed was several stories tall, the receiving collection area was to have a soft padding to prevent any damage to the fallen mail.

Cutler mail chutes were to high-rise buildings as post office street mailboxes were to residential neighborhoods. Congress in 1893 placed all mail chutes and its mail under the supervision of the United States Post Office Department. Cutler's company was the only maker of mail chute systems until 1904. "In 1905, the Automatic Mail Delivery Company of New York City started making chutes; Cutler sued for patent infringement and won the case. The two firms merged as the Cutler Mail Chute Company in 1909. It was the major maker of mail chutes and headquartered out of the New York Times Building in New York City. Cutler Mail Chute Company sued the United States Mail Chute Equipment Company in 1910 for patent infringements and won that case also.

Mail chutes and collection boxes became more sophisticated in function and style as their locations became varied. Lobby receptacles evolved from simple functional designs to more elaborate works of art in Art Deco and other styles, becoming available in a range of styles and materials. Cutler mail chutes were as essential to any multi-story building as its front door. The mail collection systems became available in a range of styles and materials. Mailbox manufacturers designed their receptacles from a simple box to a status symbol like that of the host building. The Cutler Mail Chute Company trademark was the bald eagle with wings spread, clutching an olive branch with one of its claws and a set of arrows with its other claw. Cutler first had his mail chute systems made by Yawman & Erbe Manufacturing Company until 1908. Then he built his own factory on Anderson Avenue in Rochester to produce the mail chutes and associated equipment. Cutler mail chute systems spread to other countries, including England, South Africa, India, Australia, Mexico, Cuba, Japan, and France.

From time to time, mail chute systems could clog. In 1986, more than 40,000 letters were stuck in the chute system of the McGraw-Hill Building in New York City. Some clogs lasted for decades; in 1995, a widow received a love letter and other correspondence that had been caught in a Cutler mail chute 50 years prior, and several items intended to be mailed at the Wilkes-Barre City Hall in Pennsylvania in 1923 were instead discovered in 1980. In 1999, the New York City district of the United States Postal Service responded to at least two calls a week to clear mail chutes that were hung up with stuck mail.

Current use

In more recent decades, buildings such as Chicago's John Hancock Center, the Chrysler Building, and New York City's old RCA Building have shut down their chutes. The reason is the increase of modern mailrooms in the building lobby with associated mailboxes available for the building tenants. There remain, however, about 360 buildings in Chicago with mail chutes, and about 900 active mail chutes exist in New York City. Since 1997, however, the National Fire Protection Association has not allowed mail chutes in new building construction. According to historian Boban Docevski, buildings currently using mail chutes are the Chanin Building, Trinity Building, Empire State Building, and the Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York, as well as the Lenox Hotel in Back Bay, Boston.

Canadian culture

Chateau Lake Louise in Alberta, 2008

The majority of the original Canadian Pacific Railway Hotels had the Cutler mail chute system installed in them in the early 1900s and are still being used for the collection of mail in the 21st Century. The Chateau Lake Louise hotel had their mail chute system put into the Barrot Wing in 1925. It is operational and receives mail in its collection box for worldwide distribution as of 2022. The outgoing mail is used by its guests on it eight floors and the mail slot for deposit is located next to the elevators. The collection mailbox door, door frame and flower designs on it are all made of brass. Below the deposit mail slot is the Royal Coat of Arms of Canada including the motto of the monarch of the United Kingdom, "Dieu etMon Droit (God and my right).

A scene in the Korean television series Guardian: The Lonely and Great God was inspired by a story involving a postcard stuck in a mail chute in the 18-floor Château Frontenac hotel in Quebec City, Canada, that read, "Wait for me. I will marry you when I come home." The main character in that series is seen dropping a postcard in the mail chute in the Château Frontenac, inspiring fans to make pilgrimages to Quebec City and photograph themselves doing the same.

See also

• Rota (architecture)

Sources

• Greene, Karen (2015). Art Deco Mailboxes. Cambridge, Massachusetts: W. W. Norton. ISBN 9780393734096.