Locations - New York state

Shops

ALBANY. John Keeler, Green Street. "The cash ball system is being placed in the oyster house of John Keeler of Green Street." Albany Evening Journal, 4 Feb. 1914, p.4

AMSTERDAM. Lurie's (dept. store). Pneumatic tubes. Bob Cudmore website

BINGHAMTON. Babcock, Hinds & Underwood (hardware). "We recently installed an electric cash carrier. This saves time and trouble both for you and for us." Hardware Dealers' Magazine, 1 Apr. 1909, p.742

BUFFALO. Adam, Meldrum and Anderson, 396-402 Main St. "Adam, Meldrum & Anderson's mammoth dry goods establishment was brilliantly illuminated last evening... The counters, shelves and even the overhead cash railway were utilized for the display of goods." Courier (Buffalo) 30 Nov. 1886?
• "He was fascinated by the elaborate system of pneumatic tubes at Adam, Meldrum and Anderson, which whisked money and sales slips for each transaction away to the cashier and just as quickly brought change back to the appropriate counter." Sarah Elvins. Sales and celebrations: retailing and regional identity in Western New York State, 1920-1940. Athens: Ohio Univ. Press, 2004. p.7

BUFFALO. J.N. Adam (brother of Robert Adam of AM&A's), 389 Main Street . "You will be .. delighted with the swiftness of our cable-cash system (which makes change in the remotest part of the store in thirty seconds). Chautauqua Farmer, 30 Aug. 1893, p.4

BUFFALO. W.N. Barnes, 587-589 Main Street. "The premises .. [are] handsomely fitted up with large plate glass front, electric light, cash railway system." Buffalo of today, the Queen City of the lakes (Buffalo: Interstate Publishing, 1893), p. 165

BUFFALO. S.O.Barnum & Son, 211 Main Street. "For the first time in the company's history, cash registers would be in the store, which had always used 'an old-fashioned overhead cash conveyor system' that was considered ancient even in 1938" [when the company was liquidated]. Michael F. Rizzo. The glory days of Buffalo shopping (Charleston: History Press, 2013) p. 131

BUFFALO. Queen City Dry Goods Store (Ziegler & Lehner), 144-146 East Genesee Street. "The business was established .. in 1890... The premises occupied are .. fitted up in a very convenient and attractive manner, including electric lights, cash railway, etc. Seven courteous assistants are in attendance." Buffalo of today, the Queen City of the lakes (Buffalo: Interstate Publishing, 1893), p. 135

BUFFALO. William Hengerer, 465 Main Street. "The William Hengerer Company's magnificent store, between Court and Mohawk streets, will be ready this week... An 85-station pneumatic cash carrier system .. makes quick shopping a simple matter." Medina Daily Register, 10? May 1904

BUFFALO. Hens & Kelly Inc. Pneumatic tube system with magnetic separator. Lamson advertisement in Chain Store Age, June 1949. Also Lamson brochure, 1952

BUFFALO. Weed & Co., Genesee Building. Pneumatic tube system. Building is now Hyatt hotel. Preservation Coalition of Erie County Newsletter, Summer 1992

CAMDEN. Williams & Norton. "The store, well lighted with side and rear as well as large front show windows, is equipped with the Barr cash carrier system." E.L.Welch. "Grip's" historical souvenir of Camden (Camden?, 1902)

CENTERBORO. Busy Bee (dry goods store), Center/Main Streets. "An interesting feature of the Bee was the system of pneumatic tubes which connected the register stations to the main office on the third floor." Mr Eha's place

COBLESKILL. Ryder, Lefevre & Co. "The present building is a large, handsome three-storey and basement structure .. having a floor area of over 12,000 feet... In a central position is the cashier's desk in communication with all departments by a cash carrier system... The new store was opened on Saturday, Sept. 22, 1894." Historical souvenir of Cobleskill, N.Y. (Albany: Grip's Valley Gazette, 1895)

CORNING. Rockwell (dept. store). "Visitors to the Rockwell department store recall a tube system that would transport a cylindrical-like module containing the purchase slip to the business office; then, when that office had recorded the sale, etc., the system would return the module with sales receipt enclosed to the customer. Actually, that tube system was an improvement over a similar but earlier system that Bob put into operation when he first arrived. At that time, he recalls, 'There was a cord or rope as big as your finger that went along on pulleys and you could see the darn thing going like a mouse. We had a machine that kep the thing running.' It was 'during the war', he explains, 'after I had been here about ten years that we installed this other tube system.'" Mary Elizabeth Wahlig. For real: Bob Rockwell, the man and his collection. Xlibris, 2002, p.100

CORTLAND. Warren & Tanner (dry goods), 83-85 Main Street. "Making change for customers was greatly improved by a cash carrier system, which J.C. Penney later used when it operated there." Mary Ann Kane. Cortland. (Images of America). Arcadia Publishing, 2010.

DUNKIRK. Safe Store. Pneumatic tube system in 1966. "Half the fun was sticking your arms and hands into the tubes to feel the suction... Sometimes an article of clothing got sucked into the tubes .. and on occasion I almost got sucked into those tubes too." Dunkirk High School Yearbooks website

DUNKIRK. Town & Country (dept. store). Pneumatic tube system in use as late as 1978. (Anonymous posting to Retail Memories blog)

EAST HAMPTON. Gregory's (dept. store), Main Street. "Was once a thriving establishment - the largest in the village. Inside, toward the rear, the cashier had an elevated station. Payments made to the sales clerks were inserted in a cup, which was then sent to her by an intricate system of overhead wiring. Much to the fascination of both young and old customers, change and receipts were whizzed back to the clerk in the same manner." East Hampton Star, 15 Jan. 1998

ELMIRA. Iszard's.  "I remember when Iszard's in Elmira, NY had these." Joann Mitchell Coleman in posting to Historic Photographs on Facebook

ELMIRA. Sheehan, Dean & Co., 140-142 W. Water Stret. "We invite everybody who admires ingenious mechanism to inspect the Lamson electric cash cable system now in operation at our new store. We shall be pleased to fully explain its workings to all who may call." Elmira Telegram, 23 Dec. 1894, p.10

FLUSHING. Five and Ten Cent Store. Cash carrier. See Court Cases

FRANKLINVILLE. Chandler Bros & Farwell. "He [Farwell] had .. a cash carrier (the office was on a second floor balcony which overlooked the store." RootsWeb website

GENEVA. D.W.Hallenbeck & Son, 55 Seneca Street. "The cash railway system has been in operation a year, and enables us to wait on customers with double the dispatch and correctness as attended the old method." Geneva Advertiser, 1 Sep. 1885
• "The cash railway system was taken out of Hallenbeck & Little's store early last week. The novelty had worn off and the expense, $108 per year, was more than the benefit." Geneva Advertiser, 6 Jul. 1886

GENEVA. J.W.Smith, 28 Seneca Street. "A system similar to it [the one removed from Hallenbecks] but less expensive has been adopted at J.W.Smith & Co.'s dry goods store." Geneva Advertiser, 6 Jul. 1886

GLENS FALLS. Boston Store Co. Cash ball system visible in photograph on North Country at Work website

GLENS FALLS. B.B. Fowler. "Fowler's cash railway began running yesterday [8 May 1883] and carried its freight of money to and from with promptness and precision." Quoted from the Morning Star on Maury Thompson website

GLOVERSVILLE. Argersingers (dept. store), Middle Street. "Remember the overhead conveyor that sent your money upstairs to the office and returned your change?.. Argersinger's store is today an office complex." Lewis G.Decker, Gloversville. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 1998, p.47

GLOVERSVILLE.  Merwin, Kling & Willoughby. "The Lamson Consolidated Store Service Company, the claimant here, leased to Merwin, Kling & Willoughby Company, of Gloversville, N. Y., a Lamson perfection cable cash carrier system for use in the store of the lessee." Federal Reporter, vol. 206, 1911, p.117

GOWANDA. Himelein's (clothing store),  47-49 West Main Street. Cash basket system. Shop was in business in 1970s. Posting to comp.dcom.telecom, 23 Apr. 2003
• "The original cash conveyor is still intact connecting sales desks on all three floors to the manager's desk and office." Waymarking.com website

HERKIMER. Mungers, North Main Street. Store opened in 1869 and closed in 1971. "One unique item remembered about Munger's was the way it recorded its sales. It used a system of pneumatic tubes that ran from each department to the main office on the top floor." Susan R. Perkins. Herkimer village. (Charleston SC: Arcadia, 2008), p.81

HUDSON. Marsh & Bachman (Modern Dry Goods Store), 551 Warren Street. "The dispatch with which purchases are handled are modern in every degree, having the Lamson Carrier and all other appointments connected with a business of this character." Illustrated Hudson, N.Y., (1905)

HUDSON. R.M. Shepard. "A modern Lamson cash carrier system is the latest improvement at R.M. Shepard's grocery and house-furnishing store." Hudson Evening Register, 25 Oct. 1900

ITHICA. Bush & Dean, 53 E. State Street. "It is the most spacious and elegant Dry Goods emporium of Ithica... It is heated by steam, has a cash railway system and many other improvements which facilitate the rapid conduct of the business." J.A.Miller. Ithica, N.Y. as a city of residence and manufacture. (Elmira NY: Elmira, Cortland and Northern Railroad Co., 1891), p. 34p.

ITHACA. Irving & Copeland, 210-212 North Tioga Street. "The formal opening of the Irving & Copeland grocery and housefurnishing store in the new Realty Company Building .. will be held next Monday night... Workmen from the Lamson Company in Rochester are installing a cash carrier system." Ithaca Daily News, 14 Dec. 1912, p.3

JAMESTOWN. Bigelows dept store, 114-120 West Third Street. "Bigelow's was unique among Jamestown businesses as it had a pneumatic cash tube system which fed all sales slips and money into a central cash cage on the mezzinane[sic]. Here cashiers would sort out cash and change sales, file slips, and send change back to the sales counters. This system had been installed when the store was built in 1906, and it remained operational well into the 1970s." Bigelow Family website. Went out of business in 1980s but building is still standing.

JAMESTOWN. Lundquist hardware store, 2 South Main St.  “Lundquist Hardware in Brooklyn Square used a system that carried the cash boxes on constantly moving cables that zipped around edges and corners and dashed across straightaways up near the high patterned tin ceiling. In the process the clip that spliced the cable ends together went, tick, tick, tick as it passed through the pulleys. It was all an enormous source of fascination for boys, much more so than the enclosed  pneumatic system at Bigelow’s.”  Post-Journal (Jamestown), 31 Jan. 2014.
• The building was demolished in the 1970s in an urban renewal programme. Tom Lundquist

JAMESTOWN. Noah's Ark hardware store. "Only Noah's Ark, a hardware store in Brooklyn Square, used anything of similar antiquity: a cash basket system carried overhead by pulleys." Bigelow Family website

KINGSTON. M.H.Herzog, Wall Street. "The store has been completely remodeled... A new Lamon Cash Carrier system has been put in to insure prompt service." Kingston Daily Freeman, 7/5/1928, p.1

LITTLE FALLS. T. & J .Dasey. "T.& J. Dasey have placed the Acme cash carrier system in their dry goods store." Evening Times, 14 Sep. 1892

LOCKPORT. Olsons. "Department store fixtures for sale cheap .. about 30 stations Lamson cable carriers at $5 per station." Dry Goods Economist, 19 May 1917, p. 52

LOCKPORT. Williams Brothers, Main Street. Pneumatic tubes. Lockport website

MIDDLEBURGH. Eagle Brothers. "The store has since been fitted with a cash carrier system on both floors converging to a cashier's desk. It is one of the two stores in the county using the cash carrier." E.L.Welch. Historical souvenir of Middleburgh. N.Y. (Grip's Valley Gazette, 1894), p. 12

NEW ROCHELLE. Howard Ware. Cable system with Automatic Cable Desk. Telegram of commendation in Lamson advertisement, Credit World, vol. 10, no. 8, 1922, p.2. Store burned down in 1913 and rebuilt.

NEW YORK. "4 large stores of Fulton Street, Brooklyn have it [the Acme cash railway] in daily use". Morning Journal (New Haven), 8 Jun. 1889, p. 2

NEW YORK. Abraham and Straus (dept store), Fulton Street, Brooklyn. Was Wechsler & Abraham before April 1893. "The Lamson Cash Railway company received two important orders for the system Saturday. One of them is for the large new store of Wechsler & Abraham of Brooklyn, N.Y., and will require 100 stations. Lowell Daily Courier, 13 Jul. 1885, p.8
• Cable system. The reconstruction at Disneyland Paris was based on this. In the late 1960s a pneumatic tube system was being used. Posting to alt.movies.silent, 7 Apr. 2004 and Lamson brochure, 1952

NEW YORK. B. Altman & Co. Fifth Avenue & Madison Avenue. The new addition in 1914(?) included extension of the pneumatic tube service so that there were 16 miles of brass tubing. New York Public Library website and Lamson brochure, 1952

NEW YORK. Arnold Constable (dept. store). "The store .. built a marble-front emporium at Broadway and Nineteenth Street, with aisles roomy enough for hoop skirts, horsehair stools at the counters, wire baskets that whizzed on a rope to the cashier's cage." Zelda Popkin. Open every door. (New York: Dutton, 1956), p.171. The business moved into Marble House in 1869 and to larger premises in 1914.

NEW YORK . H.A.Baker & Co. (dry goods) , 1720 Broadway, Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Basket carrier. Scene of an accident in May 1908.

NEW YORK. B & H (camera shop), 9th Avenue and 34th Street. Not really a cash railway but an "intelligent package system" to carry purchased goods from the counter to the cashier's desk. A Qcon-24 system made by Bastian Material Handling. The continuous movement of packages across the ceiling gives perhaps the closest experience to be had now to what it was like in a large store with a cash carrier system. I visited on 6 May 2013.
• "There is a chain-driven series of baskets that circle the store in a complicated route - way up in the air above everybody. When you purchase something the clerk writes it up and puts the item (or just the invoice) into a basket - and it goes up to a cashier's desk near the front of the store, where it waits for you to finish shopping. You get a 'claim check' kind of thing to hang on to. When you've all done shopping, you take your claim check(s) up front and they retrieve your items, then pay for them, then you get them. Very efficient, but pretty wierd." Photo.net bulletin board and New York Pass website. Video on YouTube.

NEW YORK. H.Batterman, Broadway, Graham and Flushing Avenues, Brooklyn. "We have just secured at an enormous expense, Martin & Hill's electric cable cash railway, the fastest and most complete cash carrier in existence, which enables us to make change in the most distant point from the cashier's desk in half a minute... This is the only system in Brooklyn." Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 30 Oct. 1887, p.12

NEW YORK. Beechinor, Healy & Conway, 809 Broadway/ East 11th and 12th Streets. "The elevated cash railways running noiselessly like lightning from every counter to the cashier's desk in the centre of the house and back again." The Sun (New York), 18 Sep. 1887, p. 14

NEW YORK. Bendels, West 57th Street. "Bendel's was one of the few stores in New York that still had sales personnel send each sales record and payment through pneumatic tubes to a centralised cashiers' office." Bought by Limited in October 1985. Limited introduced cash registers but charge transactions were still put through the tubes for a while. New York magazine, 23 Feb. 1987, p.30

NEW YORK. Bigelows (dept. store), Jamestown. "Bigelow's was unique among Jamestown businesses as it had a pneumatic cash tube system installed which fed all sales slips and money into a central cash cage on the mezzinane. Here cashiers would sort out cash and charge sales, file slips, and send change back to the sales counters. This system had been installed when the store was built in 1906, and it remained operational well into the 1970s." Bigelow Society website

NEW YORK. Bloomingdale Brothers, 3rd Avenue/59th Street. "The Bloomington Brothers, the famous dry goods dealers of New York, have just ordered 100 stations from the Acme Cash Railway company, to be put up at once." Morning Journal and Courier (New Haven) , 12 Feb. 1889, p. 2
•"The Acme store service cash system has been in operation for some months in our premises and has given entire satisfaction." Ibid. , 27 Jul. 1889, p. 2

NEW YORK. Ehrich Bros. "An event of unusual importance and interest occurred last night when Ehrich Brothers held a house warming at their new dry goods store in Sixth-avenue, Twenty-third and Twenty-second streets... An elaborate pneumatic-tube system of change has been provided." New York Times, 22 Sep. 1889

NEW YORK. Fourteenth Street store. "Crowds visit newest department store... Change made on the spot... The pneumatic tube system for shooting money to some remote part of the building has been abolished. Each of the hundred or more departments in the store has its own little kiosk for a cashier." New York Times, 1 May 1904, p.9

NEW YORK. W.K.Gilbert. Air-Line system. Lamson brochure shows men's outfitting.

NEW YORK. Gimbel Brothers, Herald Square. "There are seventeen miles of pneumatic tubes, with nearly four hundred cash stations, throughout the store, communicating with five 'centrals'. Through these tubes cash is carried at the rate of nearly fifty miles an hour, and the multiplicity of stations and centrals insures the quickest possible handling of change." Perth Amboy Evening News, 30 Sep. 1910, p. 7
• "One of four tube centrals in the store of Gimbel Brothers, New York." Caption in Story of a Service Idea

NEW YORK. Hammacher, Schlemmer & Co., Fourth anenue and Thirteenth street. "The new building is seven stories high... The building is lighted with both electricity and gas and has a pneumatic tube system." National Builder, 1 Dec. 1904, p. 44

NEW YORK. Hembolds Drug Store. (Rapid?) Wire system. Photo on Instagram

NEW YORK. H.C.F.Koch & Co., Lenox and Seventh Avenues, Harlem. "The building is equipped with the latest and most up to date pneumatic tube cash system, which is a sight worth seeing in itself." Tribune, March 21, 1891

NEW YORK. Lamstons, Church Ave. "The Lamston's on Church Ave. had a once common and colorful method of handling the situation. You brought your purchases to a clerk behind a counter. She added them up and wrote a receipt. Your money and the receipt went into a basket, which was whisked away to an accountant hidden in a booth above the store (like a projection booth). The accountant made your change, which came back in the same basket with your receipt. This ended c. 1955 when they put check out aisles and cash registers in the front." Paul Matus in posting to nyc.transit newsgroup, 30 Oct. 1998

NEW YORK. J. Lichtenstein, Grand Street. "The machinist rigs all sorts of pullys, cogs, belts, wheels and the like to .. run the cash railway system." Evening World, 13 Dec. 1889, p. 5

NEW YORK. Frederick Loeser, Brooklyn. "This company [Lamson] has just taken orders for a system of 125 stations for Frederick Loeser & Co., of Brooklyn, N. Y." Boston Post, 1 Jul. 1884

NEW YORK. Lord and Taylor, Grand Street . Cash ball system. "Among the heaviest users". Lowell Courier, ? Oct. 1883
• "The illustration shows the appearance of the Lamson system in the store of Lord & Taylor .. and also gives a ground plan of the lines of tracks radiating from two cash desks on opposite sides of the store, with the location of the 'stations' for each counter." Daily Graphic (New York), 10 Jan. 1884, p.523
• One of the "seven hundred prominent business houses in the United States using the Ball System" in Lamson trade cards of the 1880s. Ephemera Society of America website.

NEW YORK. Macys, Herald Square (Broadway and 34th Street). Opened in 1902 with 9 stories, 33 elevators, 4 escalators and pneumatic tube system. Urbanities, Spring 1996 and University of San Diego website. Lies carried out pioneering time and motion study there in 1928. Probably the largest pneumatic tube system in the world - see ROCHESTER: Sibleys below.
• "There are two tube offices or cash rooms, one in the basement and the other in the fourth story. The tube office in the basement is fitted with 130 double terminal stations and thirty single or office stations, also four three-inch dispatch tubes for small parcels.
In the fourth story there are ninety double terminal stations and fifteen office stations, making 270 in all. The total tube system is 93,000 feet in length. It and the terminals make eighteen miles of tubes. The entire system of tubes is used as an interchangeable dispatch medium for carrying messages." New York Times, 9 Nov. 1902
• "The Macy store is the latest great Department Store to be built in New York... Cash rooms have been provided in the basement and on the fourth floor, the pneumatic tube system being used throughout." Scientific American Building Monthly, 1 Jan. 1903, p. 3
• "The newly expanded Macy's at Herald Square had eight hundred pnrumatic tube lines. Thirty women sat at desks in front of a moving belt, twisted open cylinders containing sales checks and money, made change, and stamped the receipts. The best cashiers could do this two thousand times a day, which is roughly once every thirty seconds, while a relative beginner could process six hundred a day, once every minute and a half." Jane Lancaster. Making time: Lillian Moller Gilbreth - a life beyond 'Cheaper by the dozen'. (North Eastern Univ. Press, 2004) p.237
• "Macy's had nearly 24 miles of tubing, the brass cylinders inserted in it traveling a total of over 12,000 miles, or half way around the world, on a busy day." Hendrickson, p.57
• "In 1912, the Board of Operations began an experiment to see if customers would be happier if change was made directly at the point of purchase. As you might expect, shoppers found it more convenient to have the entire transaction handled by a clerk stationed on the sales floor." Robert M. Grippo. Macy's: the store, the star, the story. (Garden City NY: Square One, 2009) p.96

NEW YORK. Mark Cross. Photograph of "typical down-discharge cash desk" in Story of a service idea, p.32

NEW YORK. Newmans (dept. store) Washington Street, Brooklyn. "Money transactions whizzed along the ceiling in a little container suspended on wires." Joan Campbell in Times People Blog, 22/5/08

NEW YORK. J.C.Penney. Lamson pneumatic tube system. Lamson brochure, 1952

NEW YORK. Edward Ridley & Sons, 309,311,311½ Grand Street and 62-70 Allen Street. "N.B. Elevated cash railway is in operation at our counters, avoiding noise and confusion." New York Tribune, 10 Apr. 1880. (Earliest ocurrence of "cash railway" in Chronicling America newspaper database.)
• "This firm .. has now in operation an ingenious system of transmitting cash from their crowded counters. It is called an 'elevated cash railway' and consists of single steel tracks, upon which are run diminutive cars. A slight push gives the car sufficient impetus to run to and from the offices of the cashiers." New York Evangelist, 22 Apr. 1880, p. 8
• "The quick perception of the house in adapting itself to new ocasions was noticeable yesterday in the introduction of the pneumatic tube and automatic cash delivery system in various departments and sections... A brilliant opening [was] made more attractive than ever by the absence of the sounds of rushing cash railways and the patter of cash boys and cash girls' feet." The Sun (New York), 19 Oct. 1887, p. 6
• (By 1883 the store was complete on Grand Street from Orchard to Allen. It was sold off in 1901 and part was lost due to road widening in 1931-2.)

NEW YORK. Rothenberg, 34-42 West Fourteenth Street. "New department store open... One of the features of the store is the pneumatic cash system, the first of its kind to be installed in the city... On each floor are a number of sub-stations, where the saleswomen and men deposit their tickets and money with an assistant cashier, who sends the money through the pneumatic tube to the central cash office in the basement." New York Times, 1899? Formerly Ludwig & Co.

NEW YORK. Russeks, Brooklyn. Lamson pneumatic tube system. Lamson brochure, 1952

NEW YORK. Saks Fifth Avenue, Manhattan. Pneumatic tube system with magnetic separator. Lamson advertisement in Chain Store Age, June 1949

NEW YORK. Salvation Army Thrift Store, 536 W 46th Street. "Buy something .. just to watch the cashier bottle your cash and send it 'Being John Malcovich' style through a pneumatic tube to parts unknown. Moments later the tube returns your change and a receipt." Citysearch website
• The store looks more like a warehouse than a shop. It has sales floors on the second and third floors. The system is no longer in use. There are a few tubes on the ceiling but they don't go to the current cash desks and there are no terminals. Nothing I could identify as a cash carrier. I visited on 6 May 2013.

NEW YORK. Henry Siegel, 14th Street. "The Acme Cash Railway company of this city .. has just been awarded the contract for installing a cash railway system in Henry Siegel's big Fourteenth street store in New York city. This system when installed will be the largest in the world and will take six months to put in place." Daily Morning Journal and Courier (New Haven CT), 18 Mar. 1905, p.2

NEW YORK. Siegel-Cooper."The Acme Cash Railway, running in the big store of the Siegel-Cooper Company, New York, has demonstrated its essential points of excellence." Home Furnshing Review, vol. 12 (1897), p.340

NEW YORK. Stern Brothers. Gradually extended along West 22nd street and West 23rd street. "This company [Lamson] has just taken orders for a system of .. 100 stations for Stern Bros, of New York city." Boston Post, 1 Jul. 1884
• Moved to new site in 1913, extending from 42nd to 43rd streets. "A complete pneumatic tube system extends to all parts of the building, and belt conveyors are installed throughout the basement and connect to two spiral chutes which extend up through the building." Construction News, 27 Dec. 1913, p. 7
• "Worked at Stern Bros.. during my senior year at high school. Remember there were no cash registers then and when a sale was completed, the money was sent to a cashier located in the basement of the store in a cylinder type container. Cashier made the change and via a pneumatic tube sent it to me and I, in turn, sent it back to the salesperson." RetSchSecy posting to (Reader's Digest) Community Talk website, 14 Jul. 2004

NEW YORK. Tiffanys (jewellers). "The pneumatic tube system alone cost $10,000." New York Daily Tribune, 8 Oct. 1905, p. 4

NEW YORK. Wanamakers. "The first store to install pneumatic tubes to transport cash and documents (1880)." Old Images of Philadelphia on Facebook
• "John Wanamaker, New York, displaced pneumatic tubes." (Advertisement for National Cash Register Co.) Albury Banner and Wodonga Express, 3 Nov. 1911, p. 20

NEW YORK. Wechsler & Abraham. See NEW YORK. Abraham & Strauss.

NEW YORK. Westley & Abrams. "A Lamson cash carrier system is to be put up in the great house of Westley & Abrams, New York city. The store requires 190 stations, the largest system ever constructed by the company. Mr G.H.Stewart will leave tonight with four men to put it in place." Lowell Daily Courier, 4 Aug. 1885, p.7

NEW YORK. F.W. Woolworth, Fulton Street, Brooklyn. "He leased a three story-and-basement building, with ground-floor store space of 42 by 122 feet, on Fulton Street, three doors below Flatbush Avenue... A new cable cash system was installed with two cups to each station, and twenty-four stations. Huge placards announced the opening for Saturday, November 16, 1895." John K. Winkler. Five and ten: the fabulous life of F.W. Woolworth (Pickle Partners, 2017)

NIAGRA FALLS. Jenss Brothers (dry goods), North Main Street. "A cable cash system has been installed, the carriers being of oxidized copper." Niagra Falls Gazette, 9 Dec. 1903, p.7. Photograph of exterior

OLEAN. W.W.Ball. "W.W.Ball has put in the Barr cash railway system." Olean Democrat, 24 Jan. 1889, p.5

OLEAN. Dusenbury Bros. & Truesdell (cash store). "It will be worth a little time in seeing the 'Cash Railway System' in working order. Olean Democrat, 5 Aug. 1884, p.4

ONEIDA. Clark and Collins. "The box was hung from a track, something like an upside down train track, which went up to and along the ceiling to a cashier located on a second floor balcony or loft... I think there were several of the stations on the sales floor... When the store was busy there would be two or three little boxes buzzing back and forth at one time. We would see the cashier start to send a box back and we would try to guess if it was ours, or if it would switch to some other clerk's location." Family Stories from Madison County website

ONEONTA. J.C.Penney, corner of Ford and Main Streets. "Your cash was whisked to the cashier on their unique overhead trolley system." Oneonta High School Alumni Association Newsletter vol.1 iss.2 (July 2000), p.6

PENN YAN. House of Shoppes, 131 Main Street. "The Lown's Building, built in the late 1800s, has been historically renovated, and still houses the Lamson Cash Carry System... Feel free to ask an employee for a demonstration." (Springworks website)
• System was auctioned off when the store was sold and then sold back to the owners of the House of Shoppes. (Kathryn Larrabee)
• Videoed by the Lemelson Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution. "The Lamson Cash System, a series of six overhead cash-carrying containers on wires, was used to allow central office handling of all cash." Charles R. Mitchell: Penn Yan and Keuka Lake. (Charleston SC: Arcadia, 2004) p.25

ROCHESTER. Duke Drug Co., 219 East Main Street. "The store is probably the largest and most handsomely fitted up store between New York and Chicago and is the only drug store between these two points that has a cash railway system." American Druggist and Pharmaceutical Record, v.30, 1897, p.152

ROCHESTER. Edwards. "Down the hill" on Main Street. "All the pneumatic tubes in Edwards went to the basement where cashiers behind a concrete wall rechecked the sale slip and sent the carrier back with the slip and change. You could stand outside the money room and get a sense of how good business was by the sound of carriers arriving and departing via tube. Sibleys and Edwards both preferred charge customers who the clerk only needed to print off the sales slip and the store didn’t have to deal with cash." Rochester Subway website.

ROCHESTER. Guilford Drug Co., 138-140 State Street. "We have established a new information desk .. which, in connection with our new cash carrier system, will add to greater convenience and facility in shopping." Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, 26 Mar. 1909

ROCHESTER. Sibley, Lindsay & Curr Co., East Main Street. Moved there in 1906 after a fire in earlier building. "Located in the basement, a cadre, comprised of dozens of women, sat at banks of pneumatic tubes tied to every department throughout the store. In all, Sibley's had thirty-four miles of such tubing, the largest pneumatic tube system in the world." Crooked Lake Review, Winter 2004.
• Photographs in Shilling, Donovan A.: Rochester's leaders and their legacies (Charleston SC: Arcadia, 2005) p.124 and Shilling, Donovan A.: Rochester's downtown (Charleston SC: Arcadia, 2001) p.101
• "I remember as a small child watching the 'tubes' that carried the customers money in a canister along the ceiling and disappearing from site [sic]" (DJBURL7 posting to NY-Memories-L list, 10 Oct. 00).
• "The pneumatic tube system through which in-store communications took place (including the sending of sales slips and the retrieval of change for customers) was the second largest in the world, following only Macy's in New York City." Sarah Elvins. Sales and celebrations: retailing and regional identity in Western New York State, 1920-1940. Athens: Ohio Univ. Press, 2004. p.7
• "This could be the room that powered the pneumatic tube system for the building. Thirty-five miles of pneumatic tubes sent transactions from the sales counters to the 'tube room' where change was counted out or the purchase was put on a charge account. Nearly 1,000 such transactions took place each day. Each one taking less than 40 seconds roundtrip." Rochester Subway website. (Tubes are visible in several of the photographs on this site.)

ROCHESTER. Department store [same as above?], Midtown Mall. "They put your money in a pneumatic tube thingie (like at the bank) and sent it down to the cellar where they made change and wrote a receipt. I was told that this pneumatic system was unique in that it was the largest and most intricate in the entire country (and made entirely of copper)." 'Aquamarine Starlight' in posting to Max Creek Forum, 24 Jan. 2005

ROCHESTER. Straus Bros., 20-22 Main Street East. "Having retired from business and sold our stock, we offer for sale our entire equipment of fixtures, consisting of .. 5-station Air-Line cash carrier." Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, 4 Mar. 1914

ROCHESTER. Weed & Co. Lamson pneumatic tube system. Lamson brochure, 1952

ROME. Williams & Norton. System installed "last week". Rome Citizen, 6 Mar. 1900

SARANAC LAKE. Leonards (dept. store). "Leonards was Saranac Lake's only true, full size department store... To the endless fascination of children, the store's four floors of departments were linked to a central cashier by a pneumatic tube delivery system." History of Saranac Lake wiki with photos of exterior.

SCHENECTADY. Wallace Armer, Erie Blvd. "The store was founded in 1890 and moved to Erie Boulevard shortly after the Erie Canal was filled in. Among its features are the Lamson Cash Carrier boxes that run along the ceiling." Sunday Gazette [Schenectady] , 6 Aug. 1993, p.8
• "The old overhead trolley and cash carry system has entirely disappeared on the first and second floors. At each counter one of the latest cash registers has been installed." Schenectady Gazette, 5 Aug. 1925, p.4
• Using a cash carrier until they went bankrupt in 1996. Dead Media Working Notes 21.6 . See Reminiscences. Also posting to comp.dcom.telecom, 24 Apr. 2003.
• "There was a very old Army Surplus/Hardware store in downtown Schenectady called Wallace Armor. It had .. this funky metal track running all through the store. When you bought something, they sent the money up the track to a room upstairs, and then they would make up the receipt and send the change back down on the track." Liz, posting to Brave Athena, 22 Nov. 2005. In 1997 the system was bought by a private collector. Photo of exterior (J. Merli).

SYRACUSE. Addis Co. "I remember the clerk in The Addis Co. taking my cash and the handwritten bill and tucking them into pneumatic tube and with a whoosh off it went to some mysterious destination within the store." Meg Wolf on Facebook

SYRACUSE. "Chappell’s in Shop City, (Syracuse, NY) had this [pneumatic tube system] when paying bills." Carol Capogreco Wells on Facebook

SYRACUSE. "Dey Brothers, Downtown used this [pneumatic tube] system." Bob Waters on Facebook

SYRACUSE. Commercial Stationers, Kirtlands, 323 South Salina Street. "We have just installed the latest word in cash carrier systems. We believe that now no store can give better or quicker service than ours." Syracuse Herald, 8 July 1927, p.6

SYRACUSE. E.W. Edwards, 208 South Salina Street . "Had these [pneumatic tube system] at EW Edwards downtown." Cindy A. Mnich on Facebook

SYRACUSE. Edwards, Dey Bros. 401 South Salina Street. "Had a pneumatic tube system] in the 50s". Jim Maslak on Facebook

SYRACUSE. Flah's, 419 South Salina Street. Founded in 1916 and closed in October 1976. "When I worked at Flahs, I was 16 years old. When you put the sales slip in the tube, it would go up to where all the cash was , the tube would come back with the sale slip with the correct change for the salesperson to give the customer. No mistakes." Jean Clarke on Facebook.

SYRACUSE. Grants. "We had these [pneumatic tube system] at the Grants store downtown." Albert Austin on Facebook

SYRACUSE. "HJ Howe jewelry did that [used a pneumatic tube system] as well." Rod Porter on Facebook

SYRACUSE. Park Brannock Shoe Store. I do [remember a pneumatic tube cash system] when I worked at Park Brannock Shoe Store in 1962! Connie Dingman Watson on Facebook

SYRACUSE. Sears-Roebuck, S. Salina Street. "Sears-Roebuck on S. Salina St. had the pneumatic tube system." Jim Putman on Facebook

SYRACUSE. [Business unknown], 331 S. Salina Street. "Standard electric cable cash carrier, now operated at 331 S. Salina St.: 17 stations. Sell cheap. See B.B.Glven, 502 Keith Bldg. Syracuse Herald, 1 Aug. 1929, p.31

SYRACUSE. Wells & Coverly (high class men's clothing), South Salina Street . "Some buildings, like Wells and Coverly, have the older systems, although Wells and Coverly no longer uses its." Post-Standard (Syracuse), 17 Sep. 1978, p.38

SYRACUSE. Zell's, Hotel Syracuse. "My family's clothing store in the Hotel Syracuse had a Lamson System." Philip H. Zell on Facebook

TROY. Friars (dept store). Pneumatic tube system. Troy's Community Newsletter

TROY. Wells & Coverly (clothiers), 334-338 River and 13-19 Fourth Streets. "Another innovation is the most modern type of the electric cash carrier system with six stations." Wells and Troy took over from Morris Gross in 1890. Weise. Troy's one hundred years, 1789-1889

TRUMANSBURG. Penneys. "Penney's Store used to have pneumatic money tubes." Trumansburg News Archives 10/3/10

UTICA. Hunters. "Contracts have been let for the installation of the Pneumatic Tube Cash Carrier System throughout our store." Utica Observer, 8 Jul. 1901

WATERTOWN. Bush, Bull & Roth Dry Store.  "The largest dry goods house in Northern N.Y." and having "The Only Elevated Cash Railway in Northern New York". The image of the store interior shows two women working at the top of an ornate wooden structure that's similar to a church pulpit. These are the women who would have handled the cash.  Advertisement from 1880s sold on eBay

WATERTOWN. A. Bushnell & Co. "Rapid service through the endless cable cash system." Watertown Herald, 1 Oct. 1892

Museums

DUANESBURG. Canal Street Station Market. "The General store interior contains the original counters, sheving, showcases and floor from the historic 'Wallace Armer Co' located on Erie Blvd, Schenectady... The original Lamson cable cash car system dated from the 1880's is currently owned by antique dealer in Ballston Spa. We purchases [sic] the same Lamson cash car system through a collector on the internet. The cable cash car will be installed and operated in the future." Canal Street Station website

indicates systems which are still there (as far as I know) though they may not be working.