The pneumatic tube mail system in New York City

Post by ghaff » Wed, Oct 18, 2023, 12:49 PM UTC

pests wrote: post #73

boneitis wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Seeing you reminisce about something that I see almost daily is a weird culture shock How about: i legitimately thought that the pneumatic tube system i saw in Futurama where Hermes saves the day was a made up thing (or otherwise not commercially used or deployed outside of some sort of lab setting) until i came across this submission? I feel so silly right now.

This is lovely hah. To be honest though the bank systems are extremely primitive with short runs so I never considered them on par or in the same class with the "industrial" pneumatic systems seen in heist movies or spanning entire buildings with complicated runs.

Post by ghaff » Wed, Oct 18, 2023, 1:08 PM UTC

jprd wrote: post #60

CPLX wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are common in the Catskills of upstate New York too

and in the NYS Capital Region, just a wee bit north. Brand new bank renovations or branches all have pneumo-tubes in their outer lanes, ATM(s) along the wall to the building. Though, I _do_ remember Woolworth's, banks, state offices and Lord knows what else back in the early '80s still using these like whoa.

Post by bombcar » Wed, Oct 18, 2023, 1:49 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #101

pests wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is lovely hah. To be honest though the bank systems are extremely primitive with short runs so I never considered them on par or in the same class with the "industrial" pneumatic systems seen in heist movies or spanning entire buildings with complicated runs.

(Probably literally) tons of paper used to be shuffled around office buildings. My first (mechanical) engineering job basically everything was typed (by a secretary) in triplicate(?) with a copy sent off to central filing. If you started a new project, one of the first things you did was head to central filing to take a look for related paperwork. We didn't have a pneumatic system but we did have internal mail delive…

Post by ghaff » Wed, Oct 18, 2023, 2:06 PM UTC

bombcar wrote: post #105

ghaff wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Probably literally) tons of paper used to be shuffled around office buildings. My first (mechanical) engineering job basically everything was typed (by a secretary) in triplicate(?) with a copy sent off to central filing. If you started a new project, one of the first things you did was head to central filing to take a look for related paperwork. We didn't have a pneumatic system but we did have internal mail delive…

You see that in Monsters Inc and the sequel - they started off in the mail room. Most people think of the mail room as where incoming mail is sorted by the company, but the vast majority of it was often sorting internal mail, because mail from "outside" usually went to accounts receivable or accounts payable. But inter-office communication was huge, before it was all emailed away.

Post by huytersd » Wed, Oct 18, 2023, 3:45 PM UTC

tass wrote: post #89

kennethrc wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly! But I keep waiting for someone here to mention that, and not seeing it. But my parents' Midwestern bank used to have these too in the 70s, always thought it was so cool.

Is it that regular to need to do this for regular pipes? I imagine they used a drain snake to push through any blockages, and a redundant route until it was unblocked.