WAY back at the Dawn of Forgotten New York around 1999-2000, one of my Bronx contacts, Jon Halabi, supplied me with a photo of a slot mailbox on Palisade avenue in Riverdale, and I duly added it to FNY’s Ancient Mailbox page, which highlights the last few remaining “slot” mailboxes mounted in telephone poles or pebbled concrete stanchions. I was fascinated with them because I still saw quite a few around as a boy in the 1960s, but by 1999 most of them had been replaced by the big blue standalone drum mailboxes.
However, I had never seen this particular mailbox in person. I wandered up Palisade Avenue a ways from the Riverdale Metro-North station in the early 2000s, hoping to see it, but my camera left empty handed since I never found it. That all changed today as Bronx historian Tom Casey, who caught my zoom presentation for the Bronx County Historical Society, sent over a few shots of the mailbox in question with an address: approximately 5800 Palisade Avenue, a considerable distance from the station, opposite Sigma Place (so called because it’s curved, like a letter S).
The photos also prove that NYC just recently had occasional heavy snows; the last few winters have featured mild weather and a snow drought. Note the hand lettered sign: Collection Time, Monday-Saturday 11 AM. The closest post office is on Riverdale Avenue near West 259th.
This side shows an embossed foundry mark: Carlisle Foundry, Pennsylvania. Here’s a look at the former foundry. Carlisle is a borough (not a town) in Pennsylvania in the center of the state west of Harrisburg.
The bracket that held the mailbox remains on the pole. Judging by Street View, the box was removed sometime between 2011 and 2013, making it likely the last slot box survivor.
The nearest drum mailbox is about a mile north on Palisade Avenue at about #6000. Oddly enough, slots have been returned to the large standalone boxes… thus, they may as well bring back the small pole-borne slot boxes, no?
In this shot, we see the olive-colored relay mailboxes used by carriers to store mail that will be picked up later, a modern standalone box, and the pebbled post that used to hold the slot box.
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12/17/24