Eyes on the Street - Aug 2 2025

 

Eyes on the Street

Aug 2 2025

They’re letter carriers here, not mailmen.

Genderless, sure

but also kind of mechanical;

more conveyance 

than flesh and blood.

Bills in brown envelopes

with see-through windows,

magazines

on glossy paper,

birthday cards

and letters from camp.

Junk mail

straight to trash.

Not that we knew our mailman

by name

(who, back then, was invariably male).

Our family was too reserved

and he was in a hurry.

But something about his regularity

was reassuring;

the dog barking,

the sound of footsteps

clomping briskly to the door,

the mail 

advancing through the slot

and dropping to the floor,

the metallic report

as its lid clanged shut.

Every weekday

like clockwork.

Back when there were eyes on the street

as Jane Jacobs preached.

When it seemed a man in uniform

who looked official enough

and projected authority

was someone you could count on.

Now, we don’t get many letters

send even fewer

and the carrier rarely stops.

Because these days

we’re too impatient for postal mail,

not to mention the cost of stamps.

And, of course, the environment;

virtue

by means of the internet.

Too bad 

when the world changes too fast

to keep up.

When our leaders are erratic,

bad triumphs over good,

and it feels like things only get worse. 

When we could use some regularity

and reassurance,

even as mundane and diurnal

as a civil servant

and letters on the floor.

The dog is long gone,

the mailman’s moved on,

and someone else lives in our house

if it’s even still there.

I imagine the letter carrier’s next;

replaced 

by an actual machine

trundling down the street

on polyurethane wheels,

beeping annoyingly

like a truck in reverse.

The actual quote is “eyes belonging to those we might call the natural proprietors of the street”, from the influential urbanist Jane Jacobs’ signature book The Death and Life of Great American Cities. 

(Who, by the way, ultimately chose my home town, Toronto, to live:  a point of pride we still smugly enjoy. Although that was Toronto back before it became unmanageably big. And “home town” sounds too quaint for a big city. On the other hand, it was (and I suppose still is) a city of neighbourhoods, and I was not (and am not!) the big-city type: I grew up in the suburbs in a place called Willowdale. Which I think sounds homey enough!)