You're going to love this- horses, cars, streetcars, boats!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZ1OgQL9_Cw
Good stuff! What really impresses me is the quality of the restoration, the images are razor-sharp, and the projection speed is exactly as it should be, no abnormal "herky-jerky" movements of the people at all.
I wouldn't exactly call it "colorized," it's more like a half-tone black and white photo, which suits the film very well.
Thanks '54!
Terrifiic Thanks!
Guess that's Chatham Square at 6:00?
Anyone have Cudahy's book on NY ferries? Where was the Rosedale going, at the end?
timzWhere was the Rosedale going, at the end?
The Rockaways. Possibly touching at Newark or other points in New Jersey enroute. By 1911 it had been an excursion boat for quite some time.
This boat had as many lives as a cat, and a highly interesting history. It was famously sunk in 1896, would be sunk again in 1912, and would become USS Rosedale during WWI.
What did the navy want a walking-beam sidewheeler for?
54light15 What did the navy want a walking-beam sidewheeler for?
Probably a fleet auxiliary. It might have been used as a patrol craft around New York harbor, at least until the fleet of purpose-built sub chasers was ready.
As a matter of fact, during WW2 a Great Lakes paddle steamer was converted into an aircraft carrier for carrier landing training! Must have been a big one!
OK, I found the Rosedale's WW1 service.
https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/OnlineLibrary/photos/sh-civil/civsh-r/rosedale.htm
Found those Great Lakes carriers, there were TWO of them!
http://www.militaryhistorynow.com/2016/08/29/fresh-water-flattops-the-u-s-navys-forgotten-great-lakes-aircraft-carriers/
Thanks, Wayne- I recall reading about the Wolverine and Sable many years ago in my father's airplane magazines.
I had to watch it again - at 6:35 the train on the right looks like it's going under the Brooklyn Bridge. To a lower transit deck? I also noticed open-sided cars on those trains and on others on the elevated. Interesting.
54light15Thanks, Wayne- I recall reading about the Wolverine and Sable many years ago in my father's airplane magazines.
Probably "Air Classics," that's where I first read about them in 1967 or 1968. Such an amazing story I never forgot it.
I learned an awful lot of history from "A.C." about aviation and the historic events it was a part of.
Noticed all the street cars. Why did the underground conduit type of third rail fall out of desireability ? Instead of CAT in downtowns.
Dave Klepper may have to correct me on this, what he doesn't know about urban mass transit never happened to begin with, but I believe underground conduits for streetcars were done away with because, as you might suspect, they were maintanance headaches. Rain, snow, ice, "horse exhaust," and who knows what else used to find its way down there. It was a lot easier to maintain overhead wire.
Washington DC had streetcars that ran off conduits, however Washington never went to overhead wire as it was considered an eyesore, so they kept the conduits until the streetcars were done away with.
Flintlock76I believe underground conduits for streetcars were done away with because...
Both Washington and New York Coty had streetcars that ran on wire, ran on conduit, and ran on both, with plow pits at the changeover points. There ia no record in either city of a conduit line being converted to wire; the conduit operations in both cities lasted until buses took over. All PCCs in Washington were equipped for both, and most other equipment as well. Interestingly, the lines that were the last to be converted in Washington were all-conduit, with the PCCs still using their poles for moves in carhouses. In New York, where most cars were either-or, and only a minority equipped for both at the same time, the last conduit operation was in August 1947, West 145th Street in Manhattan on The Bronx 149th Street Crosstown, plow pit at Lenox Avenue, while pole-only PCCs ran in Brooklyn until 1954, and the Queensboro Bridge trolley to 1957. The Bronx 138th Street Crosstown continiued to use wire on West 135th Street Manhattan until June 1948, using ex-Manhattan conduit cars that were converted to pole cars to reduce maintenance requirements reqiored by the older convertables they replaced.
Conduit operation involved special slot-cleaner cars and certainly involved more maintenance expense than wire.
It took some time for all the evidence of the conduit to be removed in Washington. I do not remember just when I last saw the openings in the street. 1968, in front of Union Station?
Johnny
Have wondered if a modern type design could mitigate the cleaning problems of conduit ? If the conduit was constructed sloped toward large drains connected to the storm sewers . Then a maintenance truck with a water tank could run the conduit with high pressure jets driving dirt on the power contact wire or rail. Also any trash in conduit at bottom of conduit to the drains. My pressure washer really cleans off any dirt or mold off anything.
A maintenance door at each drain could be installed that truck could remotely open to clean any debri not going down the drain. Can imagine small tree limbes might not be able to go down drains.
In both New York and Washington conduit was required by city ordinances. Washington changed over after a cable powerhouse fire ended cable service. New York converted some cabe lines to conduit electric operation under traffic! In both cases the cable conduit was re-used pretty much as it was, though later construction used conduit of slightly different designs. Other cities with conduit operation were London and Paris.
Chicago, which retained cable operation until 1906 because of a city ordinance prohibiting overhead wires in the Loop, reused the cable track structure but not the slot, stringing wire over the streets. Most cable installations were not built to support the weight of electric cars, so the question of reusing the conduit was never raised.
Cable conduit, and thus electric conduit, had provision for drains. Even though electric conduit systems did not have pullies that required lubrication, they still required frequent inspection.
You can still fnd streetcar track in various places in Washington, complete with slot.
While there is no case of a conduit line being converted to wire, there were three sets of tracks in NYCity that almost fell under that definition.
Two werethe Manhattan Bridge and the Queensboro Bridge. Both had streetcar tracks in addition to rapid-tranit 3rd-rail tracks. The streetcar tracks had both wire and conduit. Third Avenue Railway system initially ran using conduit simultaneously with other companies usingf the wire. Third Avenue's service on these two bridges ceased long before the other companies quit.
Some conduit was installed on 138th street in The Bronx but never used, with both Nerw York Railways and Third Avenue usng wire at the location.
Are there detail pictures of the 'conduit' construction on the bridge superstructure? Did it require an enclosed vault-like enclosure below deck level?
The remains of the conduit operation on Queensboro Bridge lasted unused until the end of streetcar service in 1957. Here is a Spring 1947 Avenue at Vernon Avenue station:
As far as I know, there was no vault, and the slot was open on the bottom. Older friends like E. J. Quinby and Herman Rinke and Lester Barnett told me of looking out the front train-door window riding BMT standard steels across the Manhattan Bridge and seeing sparks from above from conduit Third Avenue streetcarrs running just ahead of the subway train at about the same speed. There were four streetcar tracks, paired direcly above the still-existing four subway-train tracks. I believe only the pair on the north side had conduit. All streetcar service on the Manhattan Bridge had ended by the time I remember riding across the bridge on subay trains, around 1936.
During WWII any streetcars on East River bridges used only wire, Brooklyn, Willlliamsburg, and Queensboro. These and Manhattan also had third-rail rapid transit trains, but in the case of the Queensboro abd Brooklyn, they were elevated Trains, which stoped running before the war's end.
Same spot later that year with one of the ex-New Bedford Osgood Bradley "Automotive" cars that replaced the ex-Three-Cent-Line Pearley Thomas cars and closed out the service. Here, in its New Bedford darkk green before being repainted orange and cream.
Looking at maps and images of the Queensboro bridge, it looks like the bridge and streetcar station were at least 100 feet above Vernon Ave. How did people get from the bridge station to street level (stairs, elevator,?)
MidlandMikeHow did people get from the bridge station to street level ... ?
One thing you should remember- If you ever travel back in time, be sure to have all your shots for polio, smallpox, diptheria and so on. And avoid eating asbestos.
54light15 One thing you should remember- If you ever travel back in time, be sure to have all your shots for polio, smallpox, diptheria and so on. And avoid eating asbestos.
Man, you had to be tough back then! I wonder what they'd think of us now? I wonder what some of us now would think of them if they met 'em face to face.
"I wouldn't like those people back then!" Some might say.
In return, I'd say "That's OK, they wouldn't like YOU either!"
You had to be tough to survive a day of shoveling coal into the furnaces at the factory six days a week and then crank starting your car to get home. Maybe it will backfire and break your arm? Then a five-floor walk-up apartment where your wife spent all day Monday over a scrubbing board doing the laundry and hanging it out in the air shaft. But you could go on a weekend steam boat excursion like the General Slocum or the Eastland and maybe you wouldn't die. The past looks like a nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there.
54light15The past looks like a nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there.
I'm with you there. I don't know if we could have been able to stand it.
Then again, I'm a veteran, you're a veteran, so we both know from experience you can get used to anything.
Besides, it wasn't all bad.
A marketable skill germaine to the time might be another matter.
A zeppelin repairman might have been your ticket to big bucks. Until 1937 anyway.
Aw, they wouldn't let me near the things, I'm a smoker.
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