The Dead Media Notebook (69 page)

“’They’re elegantly simple,’ said Mark A. Hirsch, senior project manager for the New York Public Library, explaining why pneumatic tubes were built into the ultramodern Science, Industry and Business Library on Madison Avenue, which opened in 1996. The tube system, which conveys call slips to the stacks, is not much different from the early-20
^th
-century one still used at the 42
^nd
Street research library.

“Gregg Hayes, executive vice president of Pevco, a Baltimore company that installed the new library’s system, said hospitals in New York and elsewhere have revived the pneumatic tube industry. New technology, he said, controls the force of air in the tubes, allowing lab specimens and medication to be carried. Carriers used to ‘just bang into the stations,’ or receiving bins, he said, but now they glide in, and computers can track their movements.”.

“Pneumatic tubes are also used by Costco, the warehouse-club chain, which has huge stores in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island, to move cash from registers to safes. Larry Montague, director of security, said that is safer than having employees walk around with the money.

“But at many of the city’s brokerage houses, E-mail has replaced pneumatic tubes. And Sue-Ann Pascucci, manager of the New York Transit Museum archives, said nothing remains of New York’s first subway, described by Stan Fischler in “Uptown, Downtown: A Trip Through Time on New York’s Subways” as a 312-foot pneumatic tube. Entered via a station with a grand piano, the subway, built in 1870, propelled a 22-passenger car between Broadway and Murray Street until political entanglement closed it in 1873.”

[John Aboud: In my three years in New York, I’ve noticed that The New York Times is obsessed with abandoned parts of the subway system. The “grand piano” bit is a favorite. Also note that Pevco has a Web site. ]

[Bruce Sterling remarks: Pneumatic mail systems (especially pneumatic postal systems owned and constructed by cities and national governments) are very much in decline as a medium. But private pneumatic mail systems for large buildings are still being built today. Pneumatic transfer systems (which don’t carry messages and are not “media,”) seem to be more or less holding their own as a technology. I would point out that computerizing a pneumatic system is not necessarily a new lease on life for this technology. It may give the system new features, but at a great hazard. It not only spoils the system’s original elegant simplicity, but introduces new factors of chip, interface and software death.]

From Bruce Sterling

[Bruce Sterling remarks: the following outtake from the website of Comcosystems gives a good idea of the current spectrum of applications for living pneumatic tube systems. These areas of activity would be good places to look for dead tubes.]

“Applications “Pneumatic tube systems are highly flexible systems that tend to be limited by the nature of the material moved rather than the industry or location used.

“Any situation where small to medium-sized objects must be regularly distributed to or from a central location to remote locations would be made more efficient with the addition of a pneumatic tube system.

“We commonly install tube systems for the following applications: “Hospitals: Pneumatic tube systems are commonly used in hospitals to reduce care staff workload by moving medication and samples between patient areas and labs.”.

“Sample Transport: Pneumatic tube systems are ideal for moving samples from collection points to a lab for analysis.
We manufacture heavy-duty systems for use in harsh environments. Steel mills and hospitals are frequent users of pneumatic tube systems for sample analysis
.

“Toll Plazas: Pneumatic tube systems are used at toll plazas to increase efficiency and employee safety. Employees are spared the hazard of crossing lanes of traffic and less cash is available in the event of robbery. Toll plaza arrangements are commonly in use along tollways, in parking garages, and at airports.

“Central Supply: Pneumatic tube systems are used whenever items from a central location (such as a pharmacy or warehouse) must be regularly dispatched to remote sites.
Industries that employ pneumatic tube systems for central supply distribution include hospitals, automotive plants, car dealerships, and factories
.

“Cash Handling: Pneumatic tube systems are frequently employed for cash handling. A Pneumatic tube system provides a secure method of moving cash from registers to central counting rooms. Keeping cash in a central location reduces losses due to robbery and employee theft. Industries that employ pneumatic tube systems for cash handling include retail stores, grocers, theaters, and home improvement centers, to name a few.

“Security Transport: Pneumatic tube systems can provide a secure method of transport for nearly any kind of item. All kinds of items can be moved securely with a pneumatic tube system including documents, parts, keys, and even firearms. Locations using Pneumatic tube systems for secure transport include penitentiaries, youth detention centers, retail stores, courts, and hospitals.”

Source:
http://www.comcosystems.com

From Paul Di Filippo

“In supercomputing, the time separating the world’s fastest computer from the scrap-metal heap is appallingly short.

“But when it comes to supercomputers, to become obsolescent isn’t necessarily to become useless. While many of these machines are mothballed in dank basements, a few are proudly displayed in private homes as though they were objets d’art. They can also make dandy space heaters.”...

“The life span of a supercomputer, which may cost upwards of $30 million, is typically five years, and sometimes far less. Jack Dongarra, a computer scientist at the University of Tennessee who maintains an annual list of the world’s 500 fastest computers, finds that about 250 machines fall off his list yearly.

“But there is no pasture to go out to when a supercomputer is retired. No one reharnesses it to do the billing statements for the local waterworks. The life of a machine is nasty, brutish and short.

“Enter the connoisseurs.

“In a warehouse in suburban Seattle, Nathan Myhrvold, Microsoft Corporation’s chief scientist, keeps a growing collection now numbering six supercomputers, three early Crays and three Connection Machines made by Thinking Machines Corporation. The Cray 1, designed in 1976 by Seymour Cray, the legendary inventor, was notable in part because it was a round refrigerator-shaped cabinet encircled by a padded bench, which was just the thing for technicians who needed to work on the machine’s innards.

“Today, the original Crays have less horsepower than some $1,000 personal computers, but as fashion statements, their time may be here again.

“Mr. Myhrvold is now planning a new home that will rival that of his boss, Bill Gates. It will have a living room big enough for a supercomputer.

“’The key aesthetic is that it is the most expensive sofa in the world,’ said Mr. Myhrvold, who bought his machines for their salvage costs or for a few thousand dollars.”
...
“A small living room didn’t deter Dan Lynch, an Internet pioneer who was one of the founders of Cybercash. Mr. Lynch, a wine aficionado, says he has a Cray 1 as an objet d’art in his vineyard in the Napa Valley along with ‘a bunch of tired old ‘47 Chevys.’ “While at Convex, a Texas-based supercomputer company, Steven Wallach, a computer designer, once used an Alliant supercomputer in his office as a conversation piece and as partial support for his desk.

“But even Mr. Wallach. said he was surprised to learn that another Convex employee had bought a Convex C-1 for its scrap price and was using the computer to heat his garage.”

Source: Serving Wine on the Mainframe by John Markoff, New York Times, June 28, 1998

From James Agenbroad

Chicago’s Abandoned Freight Tunnels

The definitive history of the Chicago freight tunnels is Bruce Moffatt’s “Forty Feet Below : the Story of Chicago’s Freight Tunnels” from which I have paraphrased this story.

The book is filled with maps, diagrams and photos. Around the turn of the century, tunnels were dug under most of the streets in the “Loop” area of downtown Chicago. Permission was granted under the pretense of creating a competing local telephone service. Interestingly enough, new telephones were installed in the tunnels, and they were technically advanced, with “secret” (i.e. automatic) exchanges so that you didn’t have to tell your number to an operator.

These phones were of the “candlestick” type with a large dial on the handle. But the phone system was mostly a ruse to secure permission to dig under public streets, and then to construct the second longest 2-foot gauge railroad in the U.S.A. The builders envisioned their tunnel being used for general freight shipping in central Chicago.

However, it was hard to raise freight from forty feet below street level (via elevators or conveyor belts). The little electric railroad’s small cars were incompatible with standard railroad cars.

So, the most economic uses of the mini-railroad became the hauling of coal and coal ash in and out of buildings, as well as removing spoil from construction sites.

The large capital costs of the tunnels meant that the company was often on the brink of receivership. Bruce Moffat argues that it was the subway that finally killed the tunnel. When the subway came thorough, the tunnel lost several miles of track, as well as its best customers, and the freight line had to use circuitous routes around the subway bore.

When the tunnels were abandoned in 1959, with several loads of ash still in their cars in the sidings, they lay forgotten by most until 1992, when a tunnel under the Chicago river burst and filled them with water.

This was a problem for all those buildings with connections with the tunnels, because their basements were now filled with water up to the level of the river. Most affected were those with the deepest basements and the best connections to the tunnel. e.g. Marshall Fields building which had a mini switch yard in the sub-basement. Since it carried mail from 1906-1908, this dead tunnel system was once a medium.

Source: Forty feet below : the story of Chicago’s freight tunnels / by Bruce Moffat. Glendale, Calif. : Interurban Press, 1982. 84 p. : ill., maps (1 folded), ports. ; 28 cm. (Interurbans special. 82) Includes index. ISBN 0916374548 : $9.95

From Nicholas Bodley

“In one of Chicago’s strangest accidents, a piling driven into the Chicago River bottom caused a leak in one of Chicago’s underground freight tunnels. The resulting inrush of water spread throughout much of the system’s 50 miles of tunnels, flooding subbasements and disrupting utility service throughout the Loop. No significant injuries were reported, and due to the subterranean nature of the accident, spectators had little to see. Prompt response by government agencies emptied the tunnels of water and restored utility service.

“The freight tunnels are unique to Chicago. In 1899 under the guise of constructing a telephone system, developers semi-clandestinely began digging tunnels connecting any and all Loop office buildings they thought might be in the market for direct freight service. A two foot gauge mine type electric railway was laid in the tunnels. Connections were made to the major railroad and port facilities. Ultimately the system was extended to completely cover every block in the greater Loop area. After a series of financial setbacks the system was formally abandoned in 1959.”

Source: Chicago Public Library website

From Jack Ruttan

Telidon
is an obsolete, two-way version of the British Prestel system.

TELETEXT
An inexpensive, one-way information delivery system designed for mass-market home and business use. It makes use of the spare signal carrying capacity in existing television channels [my note: the “vertical blanking interval, that space you see when you misadjust the tv’s vertical hold.]. It can present from 100 to 300 ‘pages’ or TV. screens of information.

VIDEOTEXT
An information delivery system that makes use of the telephone for two-way telecommunications. It may be linked into two-way cable T.V. or hybrid TV/telephone systems. Electronic mail is made possible by this system.

VIEWDATA
An early name for videotex, and still used as the generic name for the British Prestel system.” British Teletext started in 1975.

The book used the term “Electronic Highway.” A small town called Elie, Manitoba, was to be the first in the world totally wired with fiber optic cable. Unfortunately, the book is not current enough to say if this actually took place.

It also doesn’t say when Telidon was abandoned, though I’m sure I saw it operating at Expo 86 in Vancouver. (very very slow screen refresh times, and graphics like some of those early Apple II computer games).

Source: GUTENBERG TWO, Godfrey & Parkhill eds. (Toronto: Press Porcepic Ltd. 1980)

From E. J. Barnes

Dear Bruce, My friend Jim Mulqueeny works for the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), so I forwarded him the article mentioning freight tunnels, especially thinking of the flooding of the Chicago tunnels a few years back. Here is his reply. He alludes to current use of the tunnels by cable companies. This may bring the tunnels back into the realm of living “media”, just barely. Jim Mulqueeny: “The lamented Flood occurred April 13, 1992. On my way to work I had heard that the basements of my building (the Merchandise Mart), City Hall, and Marshall Field’s were all flooding. I immediately knew the freight tunnels were the only thing these had in common. By the time I got to work the rest of town had figured it out and we were sent home (down darkened stairways) at 10 AM. Blue Line ridership hasn’t been the same since.

“There is a book (and video) chronicling the tunnel system, by a friend of mine and co-worker, Bruce G. Moffat, called Forty Feet Below. Until the flood, the tunnels were fresh and clean. They’re not too bad now, though construction of the two subways through them has broken up the network. They are still great for cable companies and may yet have other uses.”