The Bowery Boys episode 454. Special delivery. A history of the post office in New York.

Hey, it's the Bowery Boys. Hey.

Hi there. Welcome to the Bari Boys.

This is Greg Young.

And this is Tom Myers.

And on today's show, we're going to be celebrating the mail service in New York.

Now, this is one of our all-time favorite types of shows, I must confess, which is infrastructure, the systems that keep New York operating smoothly. Now, in the past, of course, we've covered such things as the subway, electricity, even steam. And today, we're exploring the story of another great American institution,

the United States Postal Service. And perhaps more narrowly here, how New York got its mail.

Greg, I mentioned today's show to a couple friends, and kind of surprisingly, everybody had the same reaction.

Like, everybody basically said to me, oh, I never really thought about the mail service.

Oh?

Yeah, I mean, what is up with that?

Why is it so easy for people to take the mail service and post offices for granted?

Maybe because today we have so many other ways of sending messages, of spreading the news,

that maybe like the mail somehow feels a little bit less essential today, which is not the case.

No, we still rely upon the mail service to get letters and Christmas cards, packages, magazines, junk mail. Bills. Get plenty of bills.

Still get them. Hard copies. You still get hard copies? You know, for that old-fashioned, like, dread.

Well, the Postal Service has played in a central role in New York's history

because the city could not have become the capital of finance or media without its services.

And historically, the Postal Service has served, I would say, a bit like the country's circulatory system.

It's a bloodstream that keeps us all connected. I mean, think of the whole landscape of the

United States, whether one lives in a big northeastern city, like in the 19th century, to pioneer towns,

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