Over the weekend, a strange box has appeared attached to a telephone pole near The Coast’s office, at the corner of Cunard and Creighton Streets:
Upon further inspection, the box has this note attached to it:
The note reads:
It is easy to write your city
with CITY MAILCITY MAIL is an initiative dedicated
to the delivery of inner-city
postables, in Halifax.To send mail with CITY MAIL
simply indicate the address
(to the best of your knowledge)
on your envelope/package.No postage requred–
CITY MAIL is free-mail.Mail boxes will be emptied,
Their contents, distributed,
on a minimum-weekly basis**CITY MAIL is pleased to
announce the expansion of
our service, to the city of
Montreal. You are welcome to
send free mail via CITY MAIL
in these boxes.
remember to indicate the
city and addresss, intended.
This is quite an undertaking. I wonder: Who’s behind it? Do they have permission to attach boxes to poles? Is there a particular beef with Canada Post, or is it an anarchic attempt to build a different form of mail system? What’s up, anyway?
If anyone knows anything, I’d appreciate some info coming my way.
This article appears in May 13-19, 2010.
Different form of mail system, eh?
Gmail.com
The ambiguity around who is actually running this initiative is what would stop me from using it. While not saying that Canada Post is perfect, they are at least bound by legislation to respect my privacy. If someone within that organization violates that I have a means of taking action against them. I don’t know who this would be handling my mail so I could only use it for things I would want to broadcast anyway, and lets be honest there are much more effective ways of doing that in modern society. I don’t really see who this is for.
This is really sketchy stuff here. I would recommend that nobody uses it.
wow, you guys are really stiff!
perhaps you don’t send confidential mail …
perhaps you write a friendly letter to a friend? a love? a mentor? a business-cas connection?
i fear we are losing our ability to pick up a pencil and send a nice thought to someone.
email has taken over. business formal has taken over.
loosen up, share a smile!
I can’t see these boxes last very long. First Aliant and NSP have a legal right to remove them as they are a hazard to the linesmen. HRM will probably remove them from city-owned light standards.
But privacy has been mentioned in the previous replies. There is nothing preventing the City Mail folks from opening your mail and snooping. In fact, we don’t even know who City Mail is. Yeah I can see the birthday cards getting opened to steal the cash inside and hopefully no one is stupid enough to send along personal info via this service. Identity theft & fraud happens all the time.
it is not a wonder that so many ideas to “shake things up” and “have fun” in a friendly way never actually happen in this city! wouldn’t it be great if we supported people around us who are testing creative ideas rather than making harsh judgements every time?
i think this is a fun idea .. maybe you shouldn’t send a card with cash. maybe you shouldn’t send a credit card statement.
maybe you could use this free, neighbourhood service to draw a picture and mail it to a friend.
unless you are shy about your artistic skills … but that’s okay – practice makes perfect!
i feel like a broken record now ..
carolined – or maybe the City Mail folks should give more info, like contact information. It would make them a lot more credible. For all we know right now some pervert could be picking up the letters and spending his nights jerking off to them. And then people would wonder why the envelopes are way stickier than usual.
I’m totally on carolined’s side. Stop all the hate. We need to support creative ideas like this. Why do we have to rip apart something that causes no harm to you. Let’s test it out. I’ll gladly send carolined a picture via CITY MAIL.
@rro
How do you know it would cause no harm? I live in reality and given enough information, like an address, people can do harm. Excuse me for showing concern for other people and advising them to be weary of this service. Its hard not to find it suspicious. Why does someone provide a free service which would occupy so much of their time? I won’t call you an idiot if you use it, but if there is some malicious intent within city-mail I would hate to see others come to harm.
What hate rro? Is it really too much to ask that a group identifies itself before we send something to friends/family which means an unknown person will be setting foot on the receiver’s property to deliver said mail? How do we know that the person knocking at the door isn’t a recent parolee or a convicted child molester?
I don’t think it’s “hate” to ask for some accountability from a group who will be entrusted with stepping foot onto private property.
Here’s an idea; if you’re concerned about the confidentiality of the system, address a simple dollar store card to your home address. This would answer two questions. The first question is how quick the service is. The second question is the reliability of the system.
I don’t care how fun it is to write a letter and send it to someone, all the average person cares about is speed and reliability.
Besides, a stamp is what, 52 cents? Are you that hard up? “Fun” or otherwise, at least my 52 cents with Canada Post, I have piece of mind.
I flat out don’t understand all these hang ups about accountability, transparency, credibility and private property. And I can’t help but notice the irony of expressing such a thought via a media forum that is distinctly outside of the realm of accountability, transparency, and credibility…
But I like city-mail for the same reason I like commenting on internet forums… it’s a completely voluntary, democratic, creative experiment that puts us dialogue with each other. Nobody is coercing you to “entrust” them with potentially harmful information. Participate only if you’re interested in supporting something that’s potentially unifying, innovative, and playful.
Emma – it’s not so much about the sender but rather the receiver who will have no idea who the stranger is at the their door with a letter for them. Every other delivery service, including Canada Post, requires a background check and possibly even a check against the Child Abuse Registry system.
Wouldn’t you feel a bit better knowing that the guy delivering City Mail was drooling because he has a medical condition rather than findng out too late that he was drooling over the sight of you, your kids or even your pets and just got out of prison for sexually assaulting a woman who answered her door, pedophilia or fucking the neighbours dog.
someone please send me something ! let’s test this idea out and see how it goes.
we are ALL speculating.
i believe you don’t even need an address – a description will do.
you see my profile pic – i can be sometimes found at a shared downtown space where people collaborate..
i’ll be checking the mail!!
It’s all “fun” and “playful” until somebody breaks into the boxes and steals the contents, then it’s a farce. Even if you send a card with a minimum of info on the envelope, it’ll end up providing information to people who might not be privy to such info. I know it’s taking it a bit far, but people break into Canada Post boxes.
Even if you put “Auntie Smith, 1140 Gottigen” that’s more info than some schmuck needs to go and steal real stuff from Auntie Smith. I know that’s taking it a bit far, but someone providing a service like this needs to account for such situations. Especially if the security you provide is a sheet metal box, with a dollar store lock.
Seems like the Hipsters want to ironically send mail.
this blog commenting stuff is kinda fun!
so is writing letters to your friends .. or to strangers, like me!
i just gave you clues on where to find me, to send me a piece of mail.
(please do not come and steal from my place of work though).
but please do send me mail.
x
i wonder how we can let go of control & allow ourselves to be playful, like humans.
though, i know, robots need love too & they want to be loved by you.
“when we accept small wonders, we qualify ourselves to imagine great wonders” tom robbins (jitterbug perfume)
for everyone to let go of control a smidge, would be a small wonder.
I’m a little shocked at how paranoid we’ve all become…
As the surprised recipient of a City Mail delivery, I must say that it completely made my day, and reminded me how fantastic it is not only to know that someone cared to write, but that surprising, creative things DO still happen.
Fearing a service like this, it’s a wonder we even leave our houses. There seem to be a lot of other things that would warrant our fear before a hand delivered freemail system. I won’t linger on on the macabre, but I doubt ‘going postal’ is a term that would have begun with this freethinking crew.
There is also a lot more beauty in the world than one might think. We’d do well to appreciate it. Turn off the bad news, say hi to your neighbours, and send some City Mail to a friend. You’ll enjoy it.
If anyone wants to send me mail, be my guest. You don’t even have to use your home address! Use your neighbourhood coffee shop, or some public place where people would keep the letter and give it to you when they see you. My name is Neil. Send it to Steve-O-Reno’s on Brunswick. Or the School of Architecture and Planning.
If you don’t have a public place, or even a convenience store where someone knows your name, think about that, even if you never send a letter in your life. Maybe it’s worth saying hello and spending a moment with the people around you. I think that makes people safer than over-regulation ever will, with the added side effect of happiness.
No-one ever gained the trust of others by witholding it themselves.
@emmarosefeltes
In light of recent events I think you may need to rethink your view of internet forums. http://www.abadss.com/forum/1086-internet-…
The fact is the Coast identifies itself and provides a source for accountability as illustrated above. I am not saying a hand written letter is not “fun” or even an interesting idea, all I would ask would be for the people providing the service to operate out in the open identifying themselves by more than the service name. If they are so altruistic this would be no problem and if they are reading this story I invite them to comment on this thread. Again I am not accusing them of criminal activity, but my opinion is that I would not use a service like this without the service providers identifying themselves.
I am all for fun, but I will be frank here I can think of a lot more fun things to do than send a city mail. I can show someone thoughtful consideration without the fear of not knowing who facilitates that act of kindness. I would love to not see the negative side of things like this, but with news of Craigslist killers and local identity theft rings I feel the need to provide people some info. This will be my last post on the matter, use it if you like and I do hope my concerns are unfounded. Have fun out there kids, but be safe.
NeilJohn— Aww gee, I wish we living in a world where people didn’t break into post boxes to steal information and mail, but we do. The people behind City Mail need to be prepared for that, because I can guarantee you that someone will send something sensitive using this service, and it’ll get stolen. Then City Mail will be in a ton of trouble. People need to be realistic about things like this. It would be nice to live in a society where your information is treated like a commodity, but it is. That said, you can’t even trust the people running the City Mail service because you can’t contact them.
Anyone in favor of CITY MAIL, post your name and address on this site. Show us how comfortable you are with that. Because when you send mail using CITY MAIL, you’re posting someone else’s information, not your own. So put your money where your mouth is Emma and company, let’s see your details!
You don’t need to post your personal information, or that of anyone else, if you don’t want to. I received my mail at school, but the service works just as well if you have a local coffee shop, bar or convenience store that you frequent where the proprietors would gladly keep a letter addressed to you and pass it on when you came in.
If we don’t have public places like that to rely on, than maybe that poses a bigger question:
Why don’t we?
Taking the time to establish bonds of trust in our communities is as important, if not more important, than having a government-backed regulatory structure watching over us and our ‘best interests’. If anyone is worried about the ramifications of giving personal information, they don’t have to, and they can STILL benefit from this service. Or they can avoid it completely.
I do empathize to a degree with those who are fearful of the worst, but I feel that, for me, the risk is worth it, and I have more faith in the long-term insurance that caring communities provide than I have in regulations to keep me safe.
Neil Bailey
2420 Portia White Court
Halifax, NS
B3K 0B1
I’m not asking for regulation in their activity, but trust is a two way street. If they want me to provide them with info which allows them to find someone I know I want to know who they are. Even in their initial response to this story they have highlighted their ideals, but not identified themselves.
Guess I lied about that last comment thing.
My friend moved out of her house, and then I moved into it. A few days after while I was still setting up and unpacking, I noticed a girl outside delivering me some CITY MAIL. It was a letter from the friend who had moved out, with four metal address numbers included. Those numbers were 5779. The house didn’t have any address numbers on the outside, and it was something that she thought would be nice for use to have. Thanks CITY MAIL!
Tom MacDonald:
Sarah Street
I’m not to sure if many of you are aware, but there’s a group in the city who are randomly distributing cd’s at your local bus stops in halifax. These are some great mix music cd’s that are enjoyable to all genre’s of music personality. And there doing it out of the cost of there own pockets, purely for the fact that there trying to make this city a friendlier place. Hence, I’m sure is the case with the city mail. these are people doing a voluntary act, whereby they take the time out of there own day to do something nice for someone else. How many of you out there reading this post take such initiatives . Hence if you are questioning the credibility of these people, i have one simple answer. DON’T USE CITY MAIL!
I’m quite sure that no person , is going to send there rent checks or there final term papers to there profs via this service, its seems purely for fun and light hearted .