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A mail chute is a largely defunct letter collection device used in early multi-storey office buildings, hotels, apartment buildings and other high rise structures. Letters were dropped from the upper storeys and collected (usually at the ground level) at a central depository by the postal service. This innovation was before the time of the modern "mail room" normally associated nowadays with high rise buildings. It was for the convenience of the users of the building so they would not have to take their mail to an outside mail box or to the post office.〔 (【引用サイトリンク】title= National Postal Museum, a Smithsonian Institution museum - Cutler Mail Box & Chute )〕 ==Original design and usage== James Goold Cutler received on September 11, 1883 for the mail chute.〔 〕 The first one was installed in 1884 in the Elwood Building in Rochester, New York.〔 Cutler ultimately received thirty patents for variations of his invention. The original approved patent No. 284,951 design stated that it must "be of metal, distinctly marked U.S. Letter Box," and that the "door must open on hinges on one side, with the bottom of the door not less than 2'6" above the floor." If the building were more than two stories tall, the collection box was to be outfitted with a cushion to prevent injury to the mail. The mail chutes had to be accessible along its entire length so lodged mail could be removed.〔 The first experimental "Cutler mail chute" device was successful at the Elwood Building so later it was installed in two New York City office buildings. Additional ones were then installed in railroad stations and some public buildings as a test. Eventually Cutler Mail Box produced over 1,600 such devices in buildings over the next twenty years.〔 Then the postal service allowed "Cutler mail chutes" to be placed in hotels taller than five storeys. They were also installed in public apartment buildings of more than fifty apartments.〔 It was announced on Sunday, May 9, 1909, by the New York Times, "Cutler and Other Companies Join in a $2,000,000 Corporation".〔 〕 It is possible for clogs to form in a mail chute. 〔 For two weeks in 1986, more than 40,000 letters accumulated in the mail chute of the McGraw-Hill Building in New York City. In 1999, a spokesperson for the New York district of the Postal Service claimed that the service responded to two or three calls to clear stuck mail chutes every week.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Mail chute」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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