Case of the blues

WASHINGTON - Like the phone booth before it, the blue street-corner mailbox is rapidly becoming a casualty of the digital age.

As more people send e-mails and pay bills online, the decline in first-class mail is forcing the U.S. Postal Service to remove tens of thousands of underused mailboxes from city streets.

"People just don't write letters as often anymore," said Yvonne Yoerger, a spokeswoman for the Postal Service. "It's not a part of our culture anymore."

The removal of mailboxes, though, represents more than just a transition to the Internet age. To many, it means the decline of an American icon.

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