[PRCo] Fwd: New York video clips

[Fred Schneider]

Forwarded because what Jack may have said may not have gotten to those of you in the group.
Begin forwarded message:

> From: "Jack May" <jack.may at americomm.net>
> Date: February 15, 2011 5:19:03 PM EST
> To: "Fred Schneider" <fwschneider at comcast.net>
> Cc: "peter folger" <transitman at maine.rr.com>, "Bruce C. Bente" <bbente at bellsouth.net>, <Pittsburgh-Railways at Dementia.Org>, "Skip Gatermann" <biker4 at sbcglobal.net>, "Phillip G. Craig" <philgcraig204 at yahoo.com>
> Subject: RE: New York video clips
> 
>  
>  
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Fred Schneider [mailto:fwschneider at comcast.net]
> Sent: Tuesday, February 15, 2011 3:56 PM
> To: peter folger; Bruce C. Bente; Pittsburgh-Railways at Dementia.Org; Skip Gatermann; Phillip G. Craig; Jack May
> Subject: New York video clips
>  
> While looking at the film strips, there are also a lot of nice items on Gotham because it was the biggest city in the United States....
> 
> Broadway at Union Square in 1896.   This was during the brief period when all the electric railways on Manhattan Island (except for some that crossed bridges and terminated at the end of the bridges) were under the leasehold of the Metropolitan Street Railway.  
> 
> Not so.  The Third Avenue and its subsidiaries did come under the control of the Metropolitan until April 13, 1900 (although the writing was on the wall a few months earlier). But this is sort of irrelevant as all the Metropolitan films are of non-Third Avenue lines.
> 
>  
> 
> The Met finished acquiring everything by 1895 and the financial panic of 1907 caused it to unravel.  By January 1908 Third Avenue had broken away.  Second Avenue became independent again in 1910.   Eventually the remnant became New York Railways.  
> 
>  
> 
> Depends what you mean by “eventually.”  For example the 8th & the 9th (later 8th & 9th combined) became independent in 1919, until they were reacquired before the lines were converted to bus in the mid-1930s. 
> 
> As for the financial panic causing the unraveling, the truth is that the seeds were laid only a few years after the Third Avenue was acquired.  At that time the robber barons like Whitney, Ryan and Widener bailed out (in 1902 when the stock price hit $269).  Then a new paper corporation, the Interurban Street Railway, leased the Metropolitan for 999 years, paying the latter $23,000,000, which was the amount it needed to stave off bankruptcy.  Interestingly, in 1907 the company blamed its insolvency on the fact it had to issue too many transfers.  From 1906 it was effectively controlled by the IRT through a holding company, which a year later refused to keep it afloat.  After reorganization New York Railways stayed under IRT control until its 1919 bankruptcy.
> 
> The white dash cars are symbolic of the Metropolitan.    Notice also the lack of trolley poles for, like Washington DC and London, England, all lines on Manhattan Island were powered from a conduit.   On the very earliest photographs it is difficult to tell cable cars from conduit operation.   New York also had a lot of battery cars on lines that were so marginal that they were the preferred alternative to horse cars.
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWV2GQL6xfo&feature=related
> 
> Broadway electric cars at Herald Square in 1896
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYjOqch-WO4&feature=related
> 
> Somewhere in Lower Manhattan in 1901
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0pvWvLJPCE&feature=related
> 
> Lower Broadway in 1902, two years before the first subway ... look at the headway between the streetcars.
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJu46ry0-b0&feature=related
> 
> And here is the first subway that replaced it. 
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjKL8_er34s&NR=1
> 
> War Time New York ... just a family film but a few of the Third Avenue Railway "Huffliners" do sneak in while we look at Times Square.
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rf-FKkFktU&feature=related
> 
> Titled Driving Around New York City - 1928, it is a mix of several Hollywood silent comedy films.   There are some New York street scenes with New York Railways and Third Avenue Railways cars and an old New York horse car dashing through the streets but also some Pacific Electric cars in Los Angeles.   Enjoy the chase.
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkqz3lpUBp0&feature=related
> 
> Brooklyn trolleys in 1938.   The double end Peter Witts that start out the show were the most numerous cars in later years ... I think 535 of them.   The last were use about 1954.   The single Clark PCC appears at minute 2:25 followed by one shot of a St. Louis PCC and then back to the ubiquitous double end Witts.  
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Gmxm_xboqk&feature=related
> 
> Several of the Brooklyn trolley lines and and elevated lines focused on Coney Island.   I remember trying to get off a subway train there on a Sunday afternoon when everyone was trying to get back on.   It was almost impossible to get off.   My friend with me remarked, "You have a tripod with you.   Use it, damn it."  
> 
> Coney Island was where New Yorkers went to enjoy the sun, the sand, the beach and the amusements.   Much of that is now past tense.   Let's start with Miss Knapp's Select School for girls on an outing in 1905 ... see what your grandmother or great grandmother did on a summer day.  Dispel some illusions!
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yH7ON4JiD-I&feature=related
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEaZqu_xxOI&feature=related
>