Daniel Rubin | Postal boxes getting rarer

What happened to the mailboxes?

That's what Republican committeeman Jim Finnegan wanted to know this summer as he made his twice-a-week rounds through the narrow streets around Kensington and Allegheny.

"There used to be three in front of the 7-Eleven at Kensington and Ontario," Finnegan says. "Then one at Jaspar and Ontario, one at Frankford and Ontario, and then one at Jaspar and Westmoreland."

That was a few months ago. Now they're gone. All told, he says, a dozen mailboxes from his division have disappeared.

The U.S. Postal Service says it's aware of the situation.

It's the one taking the boxes.

This is one of those modern swirling global things: Spurred by the growth of the Internet and competition from rival shipping companies, the Postal Service is shifting its resources, concentrating where business is busiest.

Each year, fewer people mail first-class letters. More send parcels. So the Postal Service has been inventorying its iconic blue collection boxes around the country and flagging for removal those that get 25 or fewer letters a day.

That standard has meant the disappearance of more than 13 percent of the boxes in Philadelphia and the Pennsylvania suburbs in the last two years.

What's happened in Finnegan's 19134 area code is particularly drastic:

In the last half-year, 27 of its 82 corner boxes have gone away - one in three.

Anne DeFilippis learned the hard way.

With six children, 17 grandchildren and 21 great-grandchildren, the East Ontario Street resident has been one of the U.S. mail's steadiest customers.

"I always send a card on birthdays, and there's quite a few anniversaries, as well," she said at her kitchen table last week, a few days shy of her 82d birthday. She wasn't happy.

Arthritic knees and a heart condition make it difficult for her to get around, but she's not one to miss an occasion. One day this summer, when she walked to the corner she found her box missing.

The first carrier she saw told her, "Honey, you're not getting a box anymore."

Now the nearest drop-off is three blocks away, at Tioga and Kensington, and DeFilippis says she's not comfortable going there. "You have to watch where you walk now," she says. "I don't go on Tioga."

She's not comfortable leaving her mail by her front door, either - particularly when paying bills.

To make matters worse, the last time she asked a carrier if she could hand him her mail, he said that would require him to climb three steps to reach into her box.

And he didn't do steps.

It's not just senior citizens who criticize what's happening.

Christopher Shaw, author of Preserving the People's Post Office, says businesses too effectively lobby Congress to make the Postal Service serve the needs of corporate mass-mailers over people like Anne DeFilippis.

"Collection boxes, particularly in residential areas, can therefore come to be seen as a burden to the system," Shaw said by phone, "rather than a way to serve the public."

Local Postal Service spokeswoman Cathy Yarosky said she feels sorry for DeFilippis. She had the local delivery manager contact the elderly woman, and says that a different, permanent carrier will start delivering her mail as of this week.

This new carrier will do steps.

Which is great for DeFilippis. But what about others like her?

Finnegan has another idea. If the boxes keep going the way of the Pony Express, a protest might be necessary.

"You think they want Ma and Pa Kettle picketing in front of their office in walkers and crutches?"