Mail chute

A mail chute is a largely defunct letter collection device used in early multi-storey office buildings, hotels, apartment buildings and other high rise structures. Letters were dropped from the upper storeys and collected (usually at the ground level) at a central depository by the postal service. This innovation was before the time of the modern "mail room" normally associated nowadays with high rise buildings. It was for the convenience of the users of the building so they would not have to take their mail to an outside mail box or to the post office.