cover and inside photo credit: Scott Lynch, Flckr

It’s going to feel, well, quite frankly, odd to sing Auld Lang Syne at the stroke of midnight this coming 2015 during the time-honored annual steam whistle blow at Pratt Institute to mark the entrance of the new year. The tradition has been intact at the college for the past 50 years.

Will the song’s rhetorical first line, “should old acquaintances be forgot” feel even more so? Will we be belting out the lyrics in reference to the year just past, or will we be questioning our ability to retain the beautiful memory of this much-loved and soon also much-missed ceremony.

A press release shared by Pratt earlier today confirmed that January 1, 2015 will mark the steam whistle’s final blow, the end to the distinctive tone caused by piped steam forcing through thin-mouthed whistles to chime in each New Year.

Pratt cites the closure of the ceremony primarily as a staffing issue as the school is closed Christmas Eve through New Year’s Day, which does not allow the school to provide appropriate staffing for the event each year. Advanced set up for the event normally includes hoisting the 250 pound pipes that feed the steam whistles and the whistles themselves which weigh between 20 and 150 pounds each.

Mr. Conrad Milster, who has worked at the college since 1958 and has run the whistle blow early on will continue at the college in the capacity of chief engineer (there have been only four chief engineers in the history of the college) and will continue to run the college’s power plant, which supplies heat for the entire Brooklyn campus and including the historic engine room.

The final whistle ceremony will take place on the Pratt Main campus located at 200 Willoughby Avenue.   Hope to see you there.

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Those who wish to honor Mr. Milster’s long, great history and current work at Pratt can do so through the scholarship fund named for him and his late wife, the Phyllis and Conrad Milster Endowed Scholarship, offered to students in Pratt’s Industrial Design Program (www.pratt.edu/give) or by calling the school at (718) 230-6810.