Anonymous love letters from New Yorkers dropped into red mailboxes

It’s a Red Valentine’s Day in New York.

New Yorkers wrote anonymous love letters across the city and placed them in red mailboxes at small businesses called the “Love Letter Gallery,” which received more than 1,000 messages this year, addressed to everyone from spouses and lovers to janitors and roommates.

“The Love Letter Gallery was created to celebrate love in all its forms. It’s really a feel-good project to share stories of love, loss and connection,” East Villager Kelsey Hayes, the project’s founder, told The Washington Post.

Mailboxes are scattered throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn, from cafes like Caffe Paradiso in SoHo and The Elk in Nolita to West Village jewelry store Tarin Thomas and Greenpoint’s Big Night (a dinner shop).

Thirty of the outstanding letters—some heart-warming, some heartbreaking—were then selected for a one-day exhibition on February 7 at HOST, Howard’s SoHo gallery.

“I’m not brave enough to tell you this in person, so I’m doing it here,” one heartfelt letter began. “You mean a lot to me.”

“I don’t know how you do it, but just be yourself and everything becomes easier,” gushed another.

One was even written to New York City: “The one I had to love, and he ended up loving me.”

Hayes, the owner of POPUPFLORIST who launched the labor of love last year, paired the letters with florals inspired by the text they wrote for the exhibition.

Last year’s award letters included letters about unrequited love, such as “the most beautiful girl who works in a bookstore,” but the author hasn’t worked up the courage to talk to her yet.

There’s also a heartfelt letter to New York from “an artist with big dreams.”

“I love you and I love my high school sweetheart, she can’t move here and sometimes it feels like my heart is torn apart by two different countries,” the letter read.

One inflammatory letter enlivened the entire exhibition: “The sex was so good the neighbors lit up a cigarette.”