As the article says, every hospital has these. Without them, I have no idea how we would ever get medications to inpatient floors in a timely fashion.
The tubes are also quite "smart"; all products (including blood products) are barcoded and scanned prior to being put into the tubes for routing to the appropriate destination.
The main branch of the New York Public Library had (still has?) a nice shiny brass system in the research room. You filled out a request on a little card and the librarian would put it into a metal canister and send it down to the stacks. I last used this in 1993 or so when I was a grad student in a literature department.
Then you would go to the big reading room and wait for your number to comeup on the big board. Some wonderful books there ( I remember getting a version of Vincente Huidobro's Altazor that looked like it had a dedication from the author.) And a beautiful old building to sit and read in.
The pnuematic tubes added a nice 'steampunk' feel to the experience (although that word didn't exist yet). I would have been reading William Gibson at the time I am sure though. I know that I read the "Difference Engine" about this time.
It is so remarkable how these systems still exist in the 'older' modernist cities. I say older in reference to NYC because of the fact that it hasn't gone through a war so the intfrastructure is quite a bit older than the larger European or Asian cities. It is different in other cities. When I was in Seoul I would frequently visit a market that was near one of the old city gates. A freestanding market a few thousand years old. That's old - there is nothing in NYC that can touch that. The old stuff in NYC is a few hundred years old at most.
In NYC, the subway is still switched by hand at some places. There is a steam heating system under the streets that, on cold days like this billows up and forms impromptu clouds. And the brass pnuematic tubing at the NYPL.
These systems - especially the older bridges, streets and the subways - are crumbling. And in some ways the "must have exposed brick in our apartment" nostalgia for an older verdegris patina-ed existence is a false desire for something that never ways.
But you can't help but marvel when crossing something like the Pulaski Skyway in New Jersey (think the Soprano's opening shots) or taking the subway under one of the river tunnels or walking up over the Brooklyn Bridge - that so much was possible with relatively little.
An idea that was beautifully expressed in some of the writing around the recent open-sourcing of the Apollo Lunar Module code from the first moon landing.
If these things we're built into new apartments, people would use less cars if groceries could be sendt by tube. Groceries could even be sendt without packaging. Catering could become cheaper and better.
While that would be an awesome Jetsons future, this doesn't seem like the kind of system that would well for long-distances, amateurs, heavy items, or fragile foods (would you like your 6-pack of beer shaken or shaken?). It's like the tunnels under Chicago that were supposed to revolutionize delivery, but didn't.
(Tunnels: http://users.ameritech.net/chicagotunnel/tunnel1.html )
I once imagine a tubes network for delivering beverages from the fridge that's located in an outside unit on the property.
Also, a serviceman come by every once and a while to fill up the fridge when it get empty. Of course, security measures are there to prevent unauthorized people from filling the fridge with poisonous beverages or stealing them. The transaction are then already billed somewhere on the internet.
All the programmer have to do is press a button or order from a fridge...and viola! A nice cold beverage is delivered via pneumatic tubes to his desk.
With a little bit of programming, you could have it deliver beverages at regular interval.
The tubes are also quite "smart"; all products (including blood products) are barcoded and scanned prior to being put into the tubes for routing to the appropriate destination.