Some mail can’t wait for the next visit by the mail carrier, or is too sensitive to leave out for them. So recently, I set out to mail some tax forms and checks.
First I tried a U.S. Postal Service collection box I’ve used before, at Connecticut Avenue and Albemarle Street. But when I walked over, it was nowhere to be found.
The site of the missing mailbox. In the lower right corner, you can see where it had been bolted to the ground.
Then, I walked to the UPS Store at Windom Place, but the doors were locked and the store had been emptied out.
The location’s long-planned move to Cleveland Park had finally happened. I thought about how much I will miss the friendly and efficient employees. They would go out of their way to help you in any way they could, and the business contributed to making us a neighborhood.
Giving up for the moment on dropping off my mail, I hiked into the Soapstone Valley, then on other trails in Rock Creek Park.
On the way back, I found the USPS collection box on Ellicott Street and 30th Place was still there, but the pick up time was 10 a.m., so my mail would not be collected until the next day.
I needed to pick up a book at Politics and Prose, so I walked up there and looked for the blue collection boxes in that area. I found the boxes on Ellicott and Nebraska Avenue but their pick up times were 10 a.m. as well.
When I got home, I checked my mailbox and saw the mail had not been delivered yet, so I put the envelopes out for the mail carrier. They were picked up about 10 minutes later.
After the fact, I checked the USPS collection box locator. It is out of date, showing no boxes at Ellicott and Nebraska. At that point, the map still had the collection box on Albemarle Street but that has since been updated.
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Joe says
Several comments:
1) What about the USPS collection box at Ellicott St. and Connecticut Ave, on the NE corner, in front of the assisted living business? I directed a pedestrian to that one just a few weeks ago.
(“Ellicott Street and 30th Place”?)
2) Just a general note – why would anyone mail a paper check these days? Everything I’ve read for the past several years discourages this as inadvisable, risky, and subject to fraud, including IRS documentation.
3) RE: “the friendly and efficient employees. They would go out of their way to help you in any way they could”.
I guess YMMV at that UPS location. Four years ago a young, inexperienced employee there committed fraud by inappropriately signing off on a document I had brought there, one which, upon subsequent closer examination, required notarization by a notary public. I didn’t discover this until a DMV in another state contacted me to say that my document could not be accepted by that state because it had been fraudulently endorsed by UPS.
Merry says
We have had success in the past by going into the office building that adjoins CVS at 4301 Connecticut Ave, walking through the first floor, then turning into the door on the right just before the elevators. USPS box there and on their lower level are UPS and Fed Ex drop boxes (those we haven’t had any need to use for some time).
Diana Hart says
For my part, having witnessed an individual toss a paper cup of probably coffee or whatever into a mailbox I no longer use any of the mailboxes on the street. Sad but true.
Sandy says
I’m beginning to think that the UPS’ business model is to locate themselves as close to a U.S. post office as possible. The one at Van Ness moves to Cleveland Park, where it will be across the street from a post office. The one near Chevy Circle is a block from a post office. The one on Wisconsin is a few blocks from a post office. All these neighborhoods have twice the service, while other neighborhoods have nothing — for the convenience of the customer, right?!