'Destiny'
Off-topic discussion. Wanna talk about corsets, duct tape, or physics? This is the place. Detailed discussion of any current-season TV must be whitefonted.
The Pneumatic Tube system of New York.
On at least one occasion the tubes carried not just mail, but a live cat. “The postal workers seemed as fascinated by the nearly magical tube system as everyone else and, at least once, even routed a luckless cat through the city’s tubes.‘He was a little dizzy, but he made it." - Joseph H. Cohen, historian for the New York City Post Office.
We had a downtown dept store in my hometown that used pneumatic tubes for their cash system. None of the salespeople had cash registers but pnuematic tubes that they would send the money to the main office and they would send the change back through the tubes. It was open until the 1990s, believe it or not.
I think it was the Service Merchandise in the mall built in the 1980s that has pneumatic tubes as well. I can't remember if it was for cash or the order slips.
I was cleaning out my wallet and can I say what a pain in the ass it is when stores put your name (or worse your whole CC #) on the receipt?
snowpocalypse
Gothamist is calling this one "Snowtorious B.I.G."
Gothamist is calling this one "Snowtorious B.I.G."
Hee!
Up until Shreve, Crump & Lowe (old-time fabulous Boston jewelry store) moved out of its original building in the early 2000's they still had a pneumatic message system that the salepeople would use to send orders to the stock room, and a runner would come up with the merchandise.
We actually have left a space in the master bathroom for a potential future composting toilet. Turns out those suckers are expensive!
The hotel I stayed at in DC had the mail chute thingies. It wasn't pneumatic, though, you just dropped your postcard in the slot by the elevator shaft and it fell all the way to the box on the ground floor.