Its an early paper shredder. Documents to be shredded were pinned with clothespins to outdoor laundry lines. Then, someone would run down the rows, berserker style, swinging the instrument and shredding docs.

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It’s a sound effect box for baseball games. It was actually used by the Boston Red Sox and, unbeknownst to them, a voodoo curse had been applied to it. Once it was gotten rid of the Boston Red Sox broke their losing streak!-Kaiju Alpha shirt

Strange back story about the Austin towers. They were originally erected to help catch a serial killer (pre Jack the Ripper).
The serial killer was targeting black women in the area so plans were made to erect the towers. Of course the power that be hemmed and hawed about putting up the towers until the first white women was killed. Then they went up, lickety split.