This week for ‘Picture Postals from Lovecraft’, letters, or rather letter-boxes. We know all about Lovecraft’s letters and postcards, but what exactly did his posting them look like? Or indeed, what did a U.S. public mailbox look like at that time?

He certainly had one nearby, and a mighty capacious box it must have been to cater to the champion letter-writer of the 20th century. But only once does Lovecraft refer in passing to his “outgoing mail-box” in a 1927 letter to Belknap Long, in the letters I have searchable access to. He does not use the British form “post-box” or “postbox”.

Lovecraft would have first encountered the collection mail-boxes of Providence in his middle childhood circa 1900, and begun using them to write to his family and cousin soon after. From 1897 until 1905 they might have looked rather space-age to our eyes, done in silver aluminium paint with red lettering. This national re-painting of the boxes was in fact a corrupt make-work scheme with cash kick-backs for officials, but Lovecraft and his young pals weren’t to know that. Most likely the boxes were at that time on short posts and sited on street corners. Very garish and out-of-place the silver boxes might have looked to the frowning matrons of College Hill. But in a certain light the combination of a cosmic star-glitter and blood-red might have been quite alluring, to boys inclined to imagine far places.

So far as I can tell he would have encountered three types of box-shape during his life. Here we see two key ones together…

Perhaps more likely for College Hill, circa 1905 as his correspondence grew, would be the smaller ‘Doremus’ type seen above. These were re-done in dark green enamel paint and white lettering, probably much to the relief of the aesthetic guardians of College Hill, from 1905 until his death.

As he grew older and became involved in amateur journalism, many of his items would be larger packets. Thus he would either have to find one of the larger box types, called “package boxes” (also seen above), or visit a Post Office — where he could also have purchased stamps but would also have to endure a queue.

It would be amusing to imagine the Providence postmaster puffing and blowing about having to install a special larger box, just to accommodate Lovecraft’s daily flow of correspondence and packages. Possibly also with a late evening collection time (10:30pm seems to have been possible in Providence, judging by Lovecraft’s postmarks). But so far as I know we have no evidence of that happening.

Later, I’m not sure how much later, photographs suggest that the larger style of box could also be used for bag-storage by mailmen on their delivery rounds. But that conversion may have occurred after his death.

The larger collection boxes were so ugly, further marred by cheap ‘Army style’ stencil lettering, that some places asked that they be concealed from sight as much as possible. The move to dark green paint no doubt helped in their concealment in residential streets, with greenery grown either side.

The smaller “style B” box (seen below) was issued in 1912 and was in use into the 1960s. Cast iron was used for these from 1924, for added security. It wasn’t until 1955 that the Postmaster General had these by-then ageing boxes freshly re-painted in a patriotic red, white, and blue scheme — which we see in this vintage auction item…

Give the above dates it’s not impossible that Lovecraft returned from New York City to find that the older type had been replaced by the new 1924 cast-iron “style B” in the city, in dark green. Though older smaller ‘Doremus’ boxes, again green but with older faded paint, might have been retained in sedate places like College Hill. Or was it sedate, in terms of mail? Recall that Brown University is at the centre of the Hill. Its traffic in erudite letters and bulging packets must have been constant during term-time.

Thus it appears that when Lovecraft went out to mail letters he slipped them into mailboxes like the ones above.

Today it seems that the U.S. still uses much the same larger-type design, but since 1970 these have been a dark blue with some white logos plus red warning labels and flashes.

Further reading: USPS, “Mail Collection Boxes: A Brief History”.

A suitably seasonal ‘picture postals from Lovecraft’ post this week. Lovecraft moved into his under-heated “dismal hovel” of a room at 169 Clinton Street on the edge of Red Hook, on the 31st December (he was then “half moved”) – 1st January 1925 (“moved final load”). In that he was lucky, for if only a little later he would have run smack into the first of the “Worst Snowstorms In New York History”, beginning with two days of “howling gusts” though the city’s canyons on 2rd-3rd…

“New York City was the unwelcome recipient of 27.4 inches of snow [in the month], the most ever recorded for any January up to that time. … A relentless snowstorm that lasted two days occurred from January 2rd-3rd [and landed 12 inches on the city]. On January 12th the city required 12,000 shovelmen to tackle another snowstorm that clogged the streets. January 20th New York City was hit with two blizzards in one day. January 27th more snow fell and then the coup de grace; the giant storm on January 30th that affected the metropolitan area.

Lovecraft’s letter home, his first in January, seems all but oblivious to this. Though his 1925 Diary laconically has “snowstorm” on the 2nd. But possibly he did not wish to alarm his aunts. Also, he was well used to the severe New England winters of the time, and knew how to wrap up if he had to go out. On the 3rd he was out meeting Kirk and the gang at a cafeteria.

Atlantic Avenue, a few blocks east along from the Atlantic Avenue – Clinton St. intersection where his favoured grocery was. But nevertheless the picture evokes Lovecraft venturing out to “send express package” which he did first thing on 5th January.

After all, despite the duration and windiness of the great storm, its 12 inches of snow was a trifle by the weather standards of the period. And it would have been drifted and banked heavily by the extreme winds.

More curious is the 12th January, re: the above “On January 12th the city required 12,000 shovelmen to tackle another snowstorm that clogged the streets”. Lovecraft’s letters mention this date and “to Loveman’s over the icy pavement”, and his Diary has himself “visit[ing] SL [Loveman] in ice storm” and then… he goes strolling over the frozen Brooklyn Bridge with Kirk!

After leaving SL at his airy domicile, and starting on a walk over the Brooklyn Bridge & up through Chinatown, Kirk and I decided to surprise Loveman with a birthday gift…

Not impossible I guess, if thousands of “shovelmen” had been at work at clearing it since 5am, the pedestrian walkways had been gritted, and the storm had just passed leaving a sparkling day and few people to crowd the bridge and obstruct strolling. According to the Diary he reaches and “walk[s] Chinatown” with Kirk. Not bad, for a cold-averse old gent!

Brooklyn Bridge in snow, by Max Kuehne.

And finally here is a picture by Lena Gurr of Brooklyn, possibly made in the 1920s (she was was roughly the same age as Lovecraft), evoking the more salubrious snowy side-streets of Brooklyn once they were made walkable again…

Again, the picture evokes Lovecraft, this time with one of ‘the gang’.

As we head toward Christmas, the closest I can think of to a ‘Christmas decorations / lights’ edition of my regular ‘Picture Postals from Lovecraft’ post is Lovecraft strolling through the illuminations at New York City’s famous Coney Island amusement ground and parks. Not only idly strolling the boardwalks. He visited a number of times, both at night and in daytime, and partook of the fun palaces. The place was not exactly his ideal of the realm enchanted by “the bells of faery” or the more alluring cities of his Dreamlands, admittedly. But it was a sort of enchanted realm, by the standards of Brooklyn.

There was once even a large “Dreamland” section, the entrance of which is seen here. But it had burned down in 1911, and so far as I can tell was not rebuilt. In which case it can’t have been an influence on Lovecraft’s naming of the Dreamlands.

Coney Island was a large spur of land hooking into the ocean, as seen by the map below. Lovecraft was however not impressed by its view of the ocean, from what he called “the detestably squalid strand of Coney Island”. This was perhaps not only a reference to the litter/trash, but also to the amorous adventures known to be going on there under the cover of darkness.

But the frontage parks and their hinterland had many attractions and plazas, as shown on the map from 1905. He would have seen the central attraction of Luna Park, the huge new Boardwalk (opened 1923) and other sections of the area. We know for instance he was at the Luna Park section in 1925 because that was where Lovecraft’s Coney Island silhouette was crafted by the silhouettist E.J. Perry, and where he first tasted candy-floss. He visited several times.

In later years his friend Arthur Leeds was at or near Coney Island. If Lovecraft ever saw Leeds ‘at work’, as the ‘front man’ barker who lured the paying punters into a freak show, appears to be unknown. Lovecraft probably would have met some of the performers if he had, and thus would have mentioned the encounter(s) somewhere. So perhaps he didn’t see Leeds at work.

It’s interesting to note how some of the cards show scenes that almost resemble science-fiction magazine cover-paintings of the period. One wonders about the possible influence of Coney Island’s spectacle on the visual imagination of early New York City science-fiction writers.

I also found a not-great picture of the $100,000 Fun House called “The Pit” which had re-opened in 1923 after complete refurbishment. It was a ‘crazy house’ inside its apparently normal exterior. I recall it’s been suggested that this was where “The Room of Wonder” was located, which Lovecraft enjoyed in late July 1925.

Here’s his detailed account of solving the puzzle of how “The Room of Wonder” was done, on the spot, with jotted diagrams of explanation. It’s from the Letters from New York volume.

I can’t locate any further information about “The Room of Wonder”, but it seems plausible to think it would have been one of three or four such rooms in ‘The Pit’. And Lovecraft’s encounter recalls the scene in “The Call of Cthulhu” in which the sailors are before the door on the island…

they could not decide whether it [the door] lay flat like a trap-door or slantwise like an outside cellar-door. As Wilcox would have said, the geometry of the place was all wrong. One could not be sure that the sea and the ground were horizontal, hence the relative position of everything else seemed phantasmally variable. Briden pushed at the stone in several places without result. […] In this phantasy of prismatic distortion it [the door] moved anomalously in a diagonal way, so that all the rules of matter and perspective seemed upset.

Such are the ways of writers. Non-writer academics often assume they take key points of inspiration from the great classics of their time (Moby Dick etc). They don’t, and it would be stupid to do so because the borrowing would be recognised immediately. Instead they often ‘take it where they find it’, which means the researcher might usefully start looking where they were on the map and then try to discover what they would have encountered there at that exact point in time.

Given the dreary weather, for this week’s ‘Picture Postals from Lovecraft’ post it seems suitable to revisit one of Lovecraft’s favourite places. The Japanese Gardens at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, if only in b&w. These had opened in 1915…

… and were thus barely a decade old when Lovecraft encountered them in the mid 1920s.

Here we see a Lovecraft-alike writing near the bridge of the Japanese pond, with its bronze storks.

These are apparently from circa 1925, and are thus as Lovecraft would have seen it.

The place was also open in winter, when the hot-houses would have been the main draw. But after a fresh fall of snow the Japanese Gardens would also have had a certain allure. New York had several record-breaking snow-storms during Lovecraft’s time there. Again these pictures are from near to the time that Lovecraft was in New York City.

I’ve never seen this card pop up on eBay before, which makes me think it might be scarce. The old Court House on Benefit Street, later a school. Lovecraft knew it and (if I have the correct Court House) described it as “great” in bulk…

“In colonial times College St. was known successively as Presbyterian Lane (from the meeting-house at Benefit St., where the great Court House now stands), Rosemary Lane, & Hanover St.”

But is it of more significance in his life and work? There’s a Court House in Dexter Ward (perhaps not this one?) in which records are searched for. I can find nothing more on it in the time available for a quick search, but others may know differently.

It seems that this is not why Lovecraft knew the giant College Street courthouse as the new Court House…

[The view from his windows] “In the southwest the lofty Georgian belfry of the new Court House loomed up darkly save for the lighted clock-face, the floodlights not having been turned on.”

Since this “new” description was of the 1928 structure…

“the very fine neo-Georgian court house, built in 1928–33, at the corner of College and North Main Streets”

This week in ‘Picture Postals from Lovecraft’, a glimpse of Lovecraft’s beloved College Hill looking toward the Capitol building (aka State House). Said to be Benefit Street, possibly early 1960s.

The picture appeared in a magazine and the seller of the pages cropped the preview picture. Thus the top part is missing. But we can still see the down-slope view that Lovecraft would have known. I’ve here colourised and contrast-adjusted it.

The article reveals that… “in the 1950s urban renewal threatened the whole area [of College Hill] with demolition and redevelopment”.