Yesterday, I received this photo in an e-mail from my friend, Bill Boland. It’s a picture he snapped at 8 AM on Tuesday morning of the the steam whistle blowing for the last time at the south side location of the old Corning Glass Works plant in Corning, NY. For over a hundred years, this whistle has bellowed out over this small city eight times a day, signaling the workers to the different times in the work day. It was a sound that was part of the background of your life if you lived in any of the many factory towns throughout this country.
Corning has very much been a company town for the last century, and as Corning Glass Works grew so did the local workforce. But the company, like any big company, evolved. Corning Glass Works became Corning Inc and they became part of the global community of high tech firms, opening plants and offices all over the world.
But with this change came the end of most of the local manufacturing, most of it moved to foreign shores. Gone were many of the blue-collar jobs that supported the community for a century. It’s a familiar story throughout the country. The local company that anchors a community becomes larger and eventually finds greener pastures for their factories overseas or across borders, leaving behind a large portion of the locals to scramble to find new jobs in this new global economy.
To be fair, Corning Inc still dominates Corning and has worked hard to uphold its paternal responsibility in the area. It is still the largest employer in the area and still is responsible for much of the business that flows through all other local businesses. It invests a lot of effort in supporting this area and in keeping Corning a vibrant little city that is a fitting home for the headquarters of a global corporation.
But there’s something bittersweet in the last blast of this whistle that has sounded its shrill call over this city for over a century. It has the feel of a symbolic end to an era that many people in this country remember with fond nostalgia, especially those who are struggling to find a way to survive and prosper in a new globalized economy.
Redtree Times 
Again, are you listening in on my day?
Just yesterday I had a conversation with co-workers about how the mill whistle in the town where I was born regulated the lives of the people there.
Amazing.
I did the Corning tour many years ago as a school kid and have fond memories of the place. I hope they still do that.
Parallel universes, Dave? String theory?
Yes, the Corning Museum of Glass is still a world-class museum of the history of glass and glassmaking. Still pulls in busloads of tourists and students. It’s a really great place to spend an afternoon.
I can hear the whistle from my house about 8 miles away. It is part of life in the valley.
Just to let you know, the very next day the whistle started blasting again on the roof of a different building across the river.
Yes, I heard they moved it to one of the remaining plants. I think the symbolism of its silencing on the south side plant was pretty big still. Hopefully, the whistle will continue to blow in its new location for a long time.
No. The whistle is archaic and it truly undermines the very sense of community you credit it with. Kids in the summer, mothers with new babies, visitors staying in the hotels, parents who lost sleep to teething babes, wee ones during afternoon naps are all forced awake multiple times a day, seven days a week. We are no longer a community of factories, but of all-night grocery stores, schools that start around 9am, and widely varied schedules. We now have lighted time displays in front of many banks, our vehicles are equipped with clocks, and you’d be hard-pressed to encounter a working person who hasn’t a single watch or cellphone on them at all times.
The whistle once blew to alert laborers (who may not own a timepiece) of the time as it related to their work day. That was beneficial to so many who depended on it, and thank goodness it served that purpose at the time. The whistle no longer fuctions for that reason, and further, it no longer bares that community significance. As Corning evolved out of manufacturing, so has the bulk of its citizenry and their daily lives outgrown a whistle that blares multiple times at intervals starting at 6:45am–every day of our lives. Workers who give their nighttime hours to the third shift do not get honored with the freedom to sleep peacefully. After all, everyone needs sleep, but we do not all need to or wish to start our day at 6:45, or even to have the time decided for us. Truly, there is no longer a practical benefit that outweighs the cost to a peaceful atmosphere. It is a whistle that was once a symbol of community, but respecting people’s peace and sleep so we are more likely to get a smile out of them when we see them at Wegmans–that is more in keeping with our modern community. Allowing all people the respect of autonomy with their lives’ schedules– shouldnt that be the new tradition of community in Corning?
Although you make good points, this wasn’t about about he whistle being symbolic of community. It was more about the whistle being the symbol of the power of American industry, especially in the guise of the hometown factory, something which has become archaic in the face of globalism. Of course, from a practical perspective, the factory whistle is a thing of the past and totally unnecessary. Even intrusive. But its silence is still a symbol for the loss of factories and industry which drove our local economies.
All the nostalgia and “tradition” could continue even if the whistle is not blown at 6:45 A.M.!! As the company evolved, so could the whistle blowing. Don’t wake babies and shift workers with this earliest sounding. Keep it, but modernize its schedule please.
All the nostalgia and tradition could continue even if the whistle is not blown at 6:45 A.M.. As the company evolved, so could the whistle blowing. Don’t wake babies and shift workers with this earliest sounding. Keep it, but modernize its schedule please.
Again, this was not about the practicality or the need for a whistle. It was about the symbolism of the whistle’s silencing for the loss of factories in hometowns across the country. Of course, the whistle is archaic but it remains a symbol.
Understood. While I do agree, I guess this brings to my attention a second layer of loss here: the practical management of said manifestation of production here in Corning, (aka the whistle) is counterproductive. Rather than taking it for the sentiment you rightly remind us of here, the decision of a few to keep an archaic schedule undercuts our ability to appreciate its deeper significance. And please know that my original comment which began with the word “No” was directed at the other comments posted that characterize the whistle as a ‘way of life’ in the area. (In fact, that is simply being an early ‘morning person’ everyday, and that is not a community-wide trait.)