A Naked City mail chute

[While we are waiting.]

That’s a pretty spiffy mailbox. Detective Arcaro, could you step away so we can get a good look? Please?

[A hotel manager (Charles Tyner), Detective Adam Flint (Paul Burke), Detective Frank Arcaro (Harry Bellaver), and Lieutenant Mike Parker (Horace McMahon). From the Naked City episode “C3H5(NO3)3,” May 10, 1961. Click any image for a larger view.]

Here’s the one good glimpse of the box:

[Flint and mailbox.]

I don’t see the name, but I’m assuming it’s a Cutler Mailing System. Notice the pre-ZIP Delivery Zone label. I spotted one of those in 2013, on a visit to the Tibor de Nagy Gallery. The gallery’s address was 724 Fifth Avenue, in Zone 19. The ZIP Code for that address: 10019. The hotel in this Naked City episode was the Spencer Arms Hotel, 140 West 69th Street. The ZIP Code for that address: 10023. See? The world makes sense: 19, 10019; 23, 10023. Elaine remembers seeing the hotel when was a Juilliard student living on the Upper West Side. In 1986 the building became a co-op.

One more glimpse before parting, with a good view of the chute:

[Flint and Parker with Jack Lubin of the bomb squad (Terry Carter). Carter, by the way, was the first Black actor to appear in the series.]

Looking through the Spencer Arms’ lobby windows in Google Maps’ Street View leads me to believe that the Cutler Mailing System has left the building.

This post is for my friend Diane Schirf, who likes Cutler Mailing Systems.

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All OCA Naked City posts (Pinboard)