Possibly similar to this question on universities and street addresses. I’m listening to some old radio broadcasts (specifically “The Zero Hour” from Rod Serling) from October 1973, which includes original commercials and PSAs. One PSA is for Project HOPE and includes an address to write for further information: Project HOPE, Room A, Washington DC. No ZIP code, no street address. Was that really enough address information for efficient or effective mail delivery at that time? Presumably Project HOPE wouldn’t have had an internal mail system comparable to those discussed in the university thread. How would the USPS have processed it at the time?
Might be easier than would seem obvious. A classmate and I back in the mid-70s sent an air mail letter to “Royal British Mint, London England” asking for information on proof sets–and, yep, we got a response (although I think it was really "British Royal Mint).
Keep in mind that the post office in a situation like the one described in the OP will get a ton of mail with that same kooky address on it, and they only have to look it up once to figure out where it all ought to go. It’s not like all the little post offices in between Podunk, Alaska, and DC need to worry about it, it only gets really “sorted” once it gets to DC.
Well, in reality, having a really large dose of mail going to a PO Box can be a joke, as it gets scattered all over (wrong boxes, etc).
The postmaster might have met with those trying to establish the HOPE mailing address and they probably recommended the naming convention to keep mail out of the wrong PO Boxes or to address other sorting issues, such as overwhelming an understaffed local office that might have to handle the POB or street address, if it were more conventional.
This might enable them to hold and move it based on other rules. I am guessing a bit, but the gist of my point is that I would bet the postmaster had input.
This history by the USPS does not give a date for first class mail.
Even today there are places that can get mail delivered with minimal info, if the places are well known. For example a letter addressed to “The White House, Washington, DC” would almost certainly arrive there. Decades ago, there were probably more such places.
The IRS address is simply
Internal Revenue Service
Cincinatti, OH {zipcode}
A friend of mine has a lot of family and friends in a small town in the middle of wisconsin, to write them a letter the address simply says
First Name Last Name
City, State Zip
The town is small enough that the post office just knows where everyone lives.
An elderly member of one of my mailing lists (RIP, David) once reported that a relative of his (grandfather or something) once received a letter addressed to
ISSERLIS [this being the relative’s surname]
ENGLAND
Unless Liz or Benny have received mail addressed to simply QEII or THE POPE, I think that should be the winner for successful minimalist addressing.
I live near a small town in the middle of WI also; thought it’s not quite THAT small, we have received some truly weirdly misaddressed mail. It helps that my husband’s first and last names are unusual. I think he’d receive something that’s addressed like that; my name is more common, but I’m in the phone book under my own name.
Right, I understand that places lik “The White House, Washington” are well known enough that the mail can be easily processed. “Project HOPE, Room A” though?
As for the IRS and other governmental addresses, they are I assume like universities and process their own mail. Ditto small towns whose mail volume is such that the mail carrier knows everyone.
A room in an apparently unidentified building in Washington DC doesn’t seem to fit any of those examples.
Particularly impresive, considering the Royal Mint is in LLantrisant, Wales.
We have street addresses here, but nobody really knows how to use them as they are along the lines of: Community 123, Road 45C (there are lots of streets with the same number in different parts of town), Villa 6. There is no home mail delivery - only PO boxes.
When you have a package coming DHL or such, they call you, ask directions… “Its the third villa on the left after the supermarket, behind the mosque.” They then put a large sticker over the original address info. This sticker is a generic map (certianly not a map of Dubai) where they can pen-in landmarks and major street names. Then they get close and call again so you can guide them.
I once had to have a new credit card sent here and the package said:
(my name)
(my mobile number)
Dubai
Saudi Arabia (I told them it was the UAE, but “Arab country, must be Saudi”).
It got here.
A quaint little burg in California called Carmel-by-the-Sea has no street numbers.
Addresses there are literally “The blue house on Sand Street” “Junipero & 6th, northeast corner” and “San Carlos behind Ron’s Liquors”
The local mail carriers and delivery drivers are quite familiar with this pocket of insanity.
That was certainly enough. Room A was probably just a mail drop; the post office knew that anything addressed to Project Hope went there. The zip code, as mentioned, didn’t exist.
The mail would have gone to the main DC post office and routed into the Room A box.
You could send things within a city by putting “City” as the location: In The Maltese Falcon, Spade mails something to himself as “Sam Spade, General Delivery, City.” You could then go to the main post office and call for the mail. (Actually, the PO still offers General Delivery services).
And, of course, large cities were divided into zones, so you might write “New York 6, N.Y.” Without a zone, mail would go to the main office; with it, it would go directly to the branch. The Zip Code superseded this.
I’ve heard that most Carmel residents actually have to go to the post office to pick up their mail.
Must be a pain in the ass for emergency responders, though.
Back in the days of the Rush Limbaugh TV show he held up a letter addressed something like:
Rush Limbaugh
New York City
Which got to him.
If you rent a post office box all the address you need is the zip and zip+4.
This is just what I came in to mention. We visited Carmel-by-the-Sea a few times when we were living in the bay area. There’s a famous pancake place we wanted to visit, and we looked up the address so we could plug it into our GPS. We were frustrated to discover that the closest thing to an address we could find was “on 4th street west of main”, which wouldn’t fit in the GPS system.
Also, I bought a hat in Carmel, and on my receipt it says (this is from memory):
There’s more places than just Carmel where people have to pick up their mail at the post office. Like where I am. There’s no street delivery, so everybody has a box. Which we pay for. Thieving bastards.
Was true in South Lake Tahoe, CA when I lived there in '82. Kept them from having to deliver during the winter.
What I was suggesting was that Project HOPE was well known enough (to DC postal personnel, anyway) at that time for the same effect to apply. My guess was that Room A was a department within the HOPE building.