#108 Cable Cars, Trolleys and Monorails

The Bowery Boys: New York City History

Tom Meyers

Society & Culture, History, Documentary, Places & Travel

4.8 • 3.6K Ratings

🗓️ 23 July 2010

⏱️ 20 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For the third part of our Bowery Boys On The Go series, looking back at the history of New York City public transportation, it's a look at the long gone, forgotten methods of getting around the city. The streets were mostly dominated by horse-based transport, but this was smelly and slow -- not to mention awful on the animals. So the city experimented with new ways of moving the masses: by cable car (exported form San Francisco), the trolley and the monorail. Along the way, you'll find out the connection between the cable car and New York's most famous art-house movie theater, discover the origins behind the name of a classic New York sports team, and hear the contributions of a man known as 'the black Edison'. ALSO: hear about the failed experiments in monorail technology! www.boweryboyspodcast.com Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/boweryboys

Transcript

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0:00.0	The Bowry Boys Episode 108, Cable Cars, Trollies, and Mono Rales.
0:07.0	Hey, it's the Bowry Boys.
0:10.0	The Bowry Boys is brought to you by EuroChipo.com.
0:14.0	EuroChipo editors personally visit and review the best budget hotels in Europe.
0:19.0	Now with hotels in New York City on the web at EuroChipo.com.
0:23.0	Hi there, welcome to the Bowry Boys.
0:25.0	This is Greg Young with a solo show this week
0:28.0	and in fact the third part of our summer long mini-series, which we're calling Bowry Boys on the Go,
0:33.0	where we take a chronological look at the various forms of public transportation
0:36.0	that the cities use throughout its history to both get its citizens around town and between the burrows.
0:42.0	Now, before Tom and I dive headlong here into the creation of the New York City subway next week,
0:47.0	I thought I'd look back at some forms of transportation within the city that aren't really with us anymore.
0:53.0	Methods which are still used to some extent in other cities,
0:56.0	but were squeezed off the New York landscape mostly due to the efficiency of the subway
1:01.0	and the over-enthusiasm for the automobile.
1:04.0	Now these methods of transportation, the cable car, the electric street car or trolley,
1:09.0	and the Mono Rail, these all look pretty good to us today.
1:13.0	I'd say rather attractive, I think, to city officials who are looking at it from the perspective of clean energy,
1:18.0	New York's carbon footprint or the environment.
1:21.0	Before 1870, there was really only one way to power any sort of vehicle within the city,
1:26.0	and that was, of course, by horse power.
1:29.0	Horses provided the engine for virtually every activity in New York City.
	...

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