[PRCo] Fwd: 2012

[Fred Schneider]

Herb:
And after thinking about this, I am passing it back to all of you as well as Herb....

Thanks Herb, for that pretty view of Times Square looking down (north) from the New York Times building before most of us were hatched.  

It surely didn't take Mayor LaGuardia's forces long to remove the evidence of the New York Railways Broadway- 7th Avenue line.   It was abandoned February 12, 1936 and the rails were gone in your 1937 photo of Times Square.   The year before, the red Third Avenue system cars were running on the tracks you see and the green New York Railways cars were on the tracks you don't see.
The mayor was forcing the trolleys off the streets.   New York Railways went along with the mayor; TARS argued with him claiming they had perpetual franchises until hizhonor said, "...however, your bus franchises are not perpetual and if you don't get rid of your trolleys, I will revoke your right to run buses in New York."   Third Avenue got an extension through the war when even mayor found he could not argue with the U. S. Office of Defense Transportation and win.   

> URL : http://lists.dementix.org/files/pittsburgh-railways/NewYears2012.jpg

It has to be some of the most valuable real estate in the world.  If you look at Bing or Google maps today, very few of those buildings from 1937 are still there.   Today we have an entire new array of skyscrapers.   This long link may work.

     http://www.bing.com/maps/explore/#5003/0.6002=q:times+square:nelat:40.2135943922894:nelong:-76.0101852407148:swlat:39.9327221357105:swlong:-76.6315994252852:nosp:0:adj:0/5872/lat=40.757753&lon=-73.985721&alt=-13.29&z=30&h=14.5&p=15.4&pid=5082

The amazing thing about New York City is how much transit riding it created.   In 1907, and I am using data from the U. S. Census of Electric Railways, just as the construction of interurbans was coming to a screeching halt in the depression or panic of 1907, 18% of all the streetcar / interurban passengers in the United States were in New York City.   Raw numbers.... 1.683 billion riders in out of 9.563 in the nation.   If we add in far southern Connecticut and Public Service's operations across the river in "Noith Joisey," we had 20% of all transit riding back in 1907.   Today ... well it's closer to 50% because outside of New York, Chicago and San Francisco, most of us don't use transit.   Perhaps those numbers give you an appreciation for why there are so many New York subway fanatics running around loose.   

My parents had a great love for Gotham which is something I never developed.   Dad first went there in 1930 and claimed he wore himself out walking from Central Park to Brooklyn ... ouch.  The thought of it boggles my mind.   He remembered the Manhattan els.

He had some left over vacation time after we moved to Lancaster County in 1949 so we spent some of Christmas week in New York City.   Actually, he was frugal.   The Robert Treat Hotel in Newark and the train fare into New York City was cheaper than staying in a New York City hotel!   I said train fare.   One day I talked him into Hudson and Manhattan which was actually more expensive from Newark than the Pennsy.   He compensated by putting us on a Public Service bus the next day.   We stayed until the afternoon of December 31st, 1949.   He saw the merchants boarding putting plywood over their windows in Times Square and decided he would rather go home to Lititz and listen to New Years come in on the radio.   We caught the next train to Newark, checked out of the hotel, got in the car and headed home.

My folks went to New York several times every year ... dad loved the model studios (girls), mom loved the stores and shows, and often they both went to an evening show at Radio City Musical Hall.   When the Pennsy removed the Pittsburgh Night Express from the timetables, they would drive to Philadelphia and take the train from there.   I think that went on until my mother's arthritis got so bad she just couldn't enjoy a day in New York any longer.

I will enjoy the Christmas card in memory of them.

Me?   I got to enjoy the theater in London and its civility of that city far more than New York.   I was crazy enough to even go to London for a weekend to see a play ... if I could get a plane out of Philadelphia instead of New York.   One weekend we found a $96 one way fare from Philly to London (the taxes added on were half the fare).   But I bought four tickets and we went to the theater in England for the weekend.  

To each his own....

By the way, Derrick ... last week I met another person beside you and I who are nuts enough to go to Europe just for a weekend at the theater.


Begin forwarded message:

> From: Herb Brannon <hrbran at cavtel.net>
> Date: January 1, 2012 12:00:14 AM EST
> To: Pittsburgh Railways Group <pittsburgh-railways at dementix.org>
> Subject: [PRCo] 2012
> Reply-To: pittsburgh-railways at dementix.org
> 
> Happy New Year
> -- 
> Herb Brannon
> In Cuyahoga Valley National Park
> 
> 
> 
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> -- URL : http://lists.dementix.org/files/pittsburgh-railways/NewYears2012.jpg
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