A sign of the times in New Haven, CT

[CTyankee]

Our Union Station will be losing its mechanical schedule board to be replaced by a digital screen. Video of the working board here: http://www.necn.com/Boston/New-England/2010/01/11/Sign-of-the-times-at/1263266131.html

The board makes a clickety clacking sound that automatically makes you look up and check it for the latest info on your train's arrival and track. Some people who regularly use the station are upset with this change. So much so that officials are considering a proposal to duplicate the clickety clacking noise to accompany the digital board.

I like the mechanical board myself because I am used to it and I'm a bit old fashioned that way. Digital screens seem cold and indifferent. The sound is rhythmical and does alert you to paying attention. However, it DOES cost about $1,000 a month to maintain and I can see where cost containment is a real issue.

[TheCowsCameHome]

1. There was an article in the NH Register a while back

which reported that there was a chance that the old board could be saved, or just left in place. I can see the need for the new board, but the original should be preserved somewhere.

[CTyankee]

7. They might be able to find space at the New Haven Colony Historical Society

on Whitney Avenue.

There's also an effort to move an original relief sculpture that is on the front old building that was Yale's Human Resources office, now slated for demolition. It is from the Art Deco period and very impressive. Sorry to see that building go, too. Whitney Avenue is a great thoroughfare, altho a dangerous one, unfortunately...

[Cirque du So-What]

2. I sympathize with your plight

but economic issues always prevail, and anything that goes 'clickety-clack' requires maintenance. I believe that reproducing the sound to alert travelers of updates is a good idea, however.

[CTyankee]

4. The sound was obviously not originally intended as a wake up call to travelers.

But I guess that regular travelers thru the station would want to keep the sound. You're just not used to it in this train station, even tho you are when you go to the airport and it's no problem.

I'm so nostalgic, I like to buy my ticket at one of the windows, altho the machines work well.

I rode the train from Dobbs Ferry, NY to Grand Central Station to work every day back in the 70s. I loved my travel time and just walking into Grand Central Station was a thrill for me. Still is when I train into the city for a museum visit...

[sharp_stick]

3. I love that board

it's one reason I enjoy taking the train. Watching the letters flip around is just a bit of history that I'm really going to miss.

[CTyankee]

5. It's kind of cool, actually. I'm going to send this video to my 5 yr. old grandson

in Cali. I think he'd be fascinated, seeing something so cool that will be no more...

[Atman]

6. That's too bad. Union Station is actually quite beautiful.

The old-timey feel suits the station well. Too bad.

.

[CTyankee]

8. Yes, they did some nice restoration a while back and retained the Old World feel

while upgrading it significantly. It was obviously a labor of love for the architects that did it...

[TheCowsCameHome]

9. I worked right across the concourse from that schedule board

in the late '60's when I hired out on the railroad. I hope it will be donated and preserved by some group or society, and not scrapped.

I'm looking at a picture of it as I write this. What a beauty.

[JackDragna]

10. I remember the digital boards at Gare du Nord in Paris..

..one of them had blue-screened, which was infinitely hilarious. :)

[Fuzz]

11. I miss New Haven. My old hang out. Especially the pizza!

[CTyankee]

12. My fave was always Modern Apizza on State Street. Although now

there's a really good one here in Westville where I live, called Dayton Street Pizza.

Did you go to Wooster Street for your pizza?

[Fuzz]

13. Lol, I always loved Modern as well!

My father is a retired preacher. His church rented the church across the street and to the right as you exit Modern in the early 80's. Was at Modern a lot!

The clam pie? Yum.

[CTyankee]

15. That clam pie and, in the summer, their sliced tomato pie. Divine.

I used to work on State Street, at Women's Health Services, battling the abortion protestors in front of the clinic on Wednesdays and Saturdays. No more abortions at that facility, which has changed hands. Now the action is outside of 345 Whitney Avenue, at Planned Parenthood's clinic right next to its state headquarters, where I also worked.

I don't know if you were in New Haven during the late 80s, 90s and at least until 2004 (when I retired). If so,you might remember "Stanley" and his battered van with the gruesome "aborted fetus" pictures and his bullhorn, bullying women...

[Fuzz]

17. I moved to Branford in like 86, then to NJ in 94. Still went to New Haven

for pizza and evenings out. I don't remember seeing the van though.

The sliced tomato, how can I forget. Another one that was always ordered. ;)

Damn I miss it.

[w8liftinglady]

14. oh,man-I used to go there as a kid...

my Grandma lived on Peck St....we have(sigh) Domino's and Pizza Hut...

[CTyankee]

16. Oh, lady, I'm so sorry! What a loss.

I know Peck St. and the whole neighborhood. A good friend lives over on Willow Street. I don't get downtown much now that I'm retired. I live in the Westville section which I love but I like to go downtown to the Yale Bookstore and to Romeo and Cesare's or Nica's Market for their Italian specialties...just the aroma in those little stores is enough to drive my hunger pangs wild...