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I grew up in a part of the northern Midwest where just about every house built before the 1940's has a small steel door in the foundation, usually on the same side as the driveway. It was used to deliver coal which was shoveled through the door, into a bin in the basement and eventually burned to heat the house, most likely in a big "octopus" furnace or a boiler.
It always fascinated me that so many houses had this one little thing that was once an incredibly necessary feature that was eventually shut and sealed from the inside, probably never to be opened again.
I feel the same about my apartment door (my apartment was built in the 1970s), it has a mailbox attached to the inside of it and there is a slot in the door to put mail in it from the outside, it gets rarely used since most of the mail is delivered to the newer mailboxes installed by the stairs on the first floor, but If I'm not home, the delivery driver usually drops the slip in there.
However, below the mailbox is another, smaller, door that is intended specifically for newspapers. I tried to open it out of curiosity, but the latch was quite stiff and was painted over at some point, so probably the previous tenant also didn't use it. That means that small door has probably been closed for at least a decade, if not more, and probably will remain closed forever.