Photo by rjs1322.

While it’s no secret that the financial troubles of the United States Postal Service will likely lead to the closure of local post offices like the one at 14th and T Streets NW, it’s also having another effect that may have slipped under your radar: a reduction in the number of familiar blue collection boxes around town.

Georgetown Patch followed up with the USPS on some complaints lodged on a local listserv and has the details:

To date 194 blue collection boxes have been removed from District streets.

Though USPS did not provide information on where these boxes have been removed, Sharon Tennison, a spokesperson for USPS, said the 20007 ZIP Code has lost 12 regular collection boxes and one Express collection box. That same area once had a total of 109 boxes and now has 86 street mailboxes remaining.

Tennison did not answer Patch’s question about the process by which mailboxes are selected for elimination.

Obviously, there are plenty of collection boxes still out there — it’s not as if they have been wiped from existence completely, though you may have to walk a couple extra blocks to find one. But just like VCRs and 14.4 kbit/s modems, mailboxes do appear to be a solid candidate for eventual inclusion on the perpetually-growing list of cultural relics.