Arlington Company Featured in Travel Channel Show

Arlington’s  will take the stage at tonight’s Travel Channel show “Hidden City.”

The Travel Channel's new show debuted last week with an episode about Chicago. The second episode, scheduled to go live on Tuesday, 10 p.m., features the Boston area with segments filmed in Arlington.

American Alarm was chosen to share some insight on modern-day banks security. Company President Wells Sampson said it was exciting to share some of his locally grown company’s expertise.

“They selected us based on our expertise with high security for banks,” Sampson said. “It was an honor to be selected for that.”

The show’s producers are featuring the Great Brink' s Robbery of 1950 in Boston’s North End. Today, Sampson said, technology would have probably impeded the robbery from ever occurring.

“There are four elements that make the Brink's Robbery much less likely today,” Sampson. Locks are most sophisticated, there are motion detectors between doors, cameras are higher resolution and there are hold-up buttons, which would have alerted a company like American Alarm of an ongoing robbery, he said.

“The other thing they really liked was in our building, down the street, where the former Arlington Police Department’s women’s cell block is still intact,” he added.

The crews shot on location in Arlington for about half a day.

American Alarm moved from Winchester to Arlington in 1983. The company is a second-generation family business, with Sampson joining the team about 13 years ago.