Reminiscences from the end of the horse era in New York City (1952)

https://untappedcities.com/2022/02/21/horse-era-new-york-city/

by js2 • 3 years ago

86 52 3 years ago

untappedcities.com

0823498723498723• 3 years ago

Will AI keep a few of us around as pasture decorations?

("now, now, Mr. 9872, if you keep hitting up the replicator like that you're bound to get founder!")

kouru2252• 3 years ago

As long as humans are capable of producing more than we consume, AI will keep us around.

Animats• 3 years ago

What fraction of the US population currently passes that test?

0823498723498723• 3 years ago

That was the point of my comment: humans used to keep horses because they produced more than they consumed. Nowadays some horses are still kept for that reason, but I'd bet the majority are kept for more sentimental reasons.

eg https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Evolution-of-the-horse-p...

linksnapzz2• 3 years ago

It'll also have 90% of the males castrated to make them more tractable.

0823498723498723• 3 years ago

At least it's unlikely to be interested in eating the least tractable males.

js22• 3 years ago

I watched Naked City (1948) the other night and there's a scene with a milkman delivering from a horse drawn carriage. I wondered, how long did horse-drawn carriages continue to be used in NYC (not including the carriage rides in Central Park)? Which led me to this lovely article.

I submitted it a day or two ago; I guess the HN mods thought it worthy of the second chance pool[1]. Thank you HN mods! :-)

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/pool

nyc111• 3 years ago

What is “pool”, I don’t have such a link on my orange band.

MarcScott• 3 years ago

Sometimes Dang sees an article that never made it to the front page that he thinks we'll enjoy. He shoves it on to the front page for a while, so it gets some visibility and upvotes.

Brajeshwar• 3 years ago

Quite a lot of links are not in the orange band. Check this one https://news.ycombinator.com/lists

Sometimes a good but forgotten submission (even after 24-48 hours), would get invited. HN sends you an email and if you OK it, it goes into the roaster.

js22• 3 years ago

dang did a show HN for the second-chance pool:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308

thorin2• 3 years ago

Strangely the rag and bone man and the brewery deliveries still used horses when I was a kid, late 1970s UK! I think the brewery used the carthorses as a kind of advertisement for the beer, but it was still very weird. I'm sure milk carts were still horsedrawn into the 1960s in the UK in some cases although I'm not sure where I got that from.

nerdponx• 3 years ago

I had no idea the rag-and-bone man was still a thing into the 70s. Was that just in the UK? I've certainly never heard of it in the US during that time period.

ggm• 3 years ago

A comment my mother made, from her experiences as a child in the UK in the 1920s was that if London hadn't moved to mechanical transport, the city would have drowned in horse-shit if the population rise continued. It was a nightly obligation to deal with the prodigious amounts of horse manure, every day, without fail.

I might add that many fine multi-million pound houses now exist inside the horse stables, the "mews" of London. They're a feature of many films in the 50s, 60s and 70s.

syndacks• 3 years ago

Unfortunately NYC is still in a horse era with these beasts strapped to carriages towing tourists around Central Park, smelling like a fucking barn, kicking hay filled shit particles in the air on a hot summer day, just so the slob of a horse pimp can make a buck? TheFuckOuttaHere!!

bozhark• 3 years ago

Who hurt you and why was it a horse

shiroiuma3• 3 years ago

I'd prefer not to see horses used this way too, but I think the pollution and danger from all the cars and buses is much, much worse. They should ban the private cars, and force the taxis and buses to be EVs, and install protected cycling lanes to get more people onto bicycles.

anonymou2• 3 years ago

cycle lanes protected from what?

LemmyInThePub2• 3 years ago

I'd prefer not to see horses used this way

What a truly, utterly bizarre thing to say!

Why on earth do you object to horses pulling carriages? Do you object to horse riding also? If so, why?

One can only suspect you are used to living in a city and somewhat divorced from nature, though I'd be interested to hear your response.

lgkk• 3 years ago

Those carriages could lose the horse and become fully autonomous and electric.

Waymo could run those, you can book them and it’s just a carriage that is motorized.

shiroiuma3• 3 years ago

That would actually be really cool. You'd miss out on getting to see a horse, but you'd be spared from the not-so-great things about being near a horse (horse poo smell), and even better, you wouldn't have to deal with the driver. And you could probably book a timeslot in advance too, see how much it costs, etc.

paleface2• 3 years ago

Presumably, you’re more of a donkey (ass) man?!…

fsckboy• 3 years ago

(1952)? these reminiscences are of the end of the horse era back at the turn of the century (1900)

omneity• 3 years ago

It seems to be written in 1952, reminiscing what it was like around 1900.

devb• 3 years ago

The first line of the article is "My memories are of New York around 1899 — when I was just a boy of seven."

flanbiscuit• 3 years ago

I was visiting Charleston South Carolina recently and in the old quarter they have horses taking around tourists on carriages (like little mini horse drawn open air buses). The smell of horse piss and manure in the area was gross and very strong (this was summer). I can't imagine what it would be like to have that many horses in NYC as the main mode of transportation. The smell back then must have been awful. I get everyone just put up with it.

jvm___• 3 years ago

They couldn't clear dead horses until Sunday as the roads were too busy and crowded...

ljf• 3 years ago

Don't forget that there was also no deodorant for the humans back then, I think it is easy to forget just how bad cities in general must have smelt back then. Plus coal fires, people smoking, people washing their bodies and their clothes irregularly.

(my father tells a story of how in the 50s he only had one work shirt and 10 removable collars - he'd wear the same shirt for 2 weeks just changing the collar daily)

dcminter2• 3 years ago

I think it is easy to forget just how bad cities in general must have smelt back then.

I refer you to London's "Great Stink" of 1858 during which the smell was so bad that Parliament seriously considered moving to a different city: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Stink

pharmakom• 3 years ago

There will come a time when people say similar things about motor traffic in cities. So noisy! I can taste the fumes! How did people put up with this?

raducu• 3 years ago

People (including myself) are already saying this.

I live in an Easter European major city and when traveling to a civilized country (yes fellow eastern europeans, hate me for saying this) I'm always take aback by the quality of the air. I've recently visited Stockholm and the amount and variety of mushrooms growing in small urban parks surprised me -- I'm sure there's many orders of magnitude less pollution there than where I live.

rob74• 3 years ago

I always think about this even today when an older car passes by - you can really smell the difference between 1980s exhaust filtering and more modern technology, and imagine how it must have been when all cars smelled that way. So technology is improving, but I'm not optimistic that we will get completely rid of motor traffic in cities in my lifetime...

yMEyUyNE12• 3 years ago

We get used to the smell and stink (environment). Ever realized that the person who walks into the room notices a smell that the people in the room aren't even aware off.

dieselgate• 3 years ago

Roads in Salt Lake City need to be wide enough so someone operating a horse carriage can turn around "without cursing" - from what I've heard while in the area.

raffraffraff2• 3 years ago

Mormons don't curse anyways, unless you count "shut the front door", "cheese and rice", "mother father" and "Got down sat on a bench"

bobsmooth• 3 years ago

Car exhaust smells better than horse droppings. Couldn't imagine living in the age of horses.

thorin2• 3 years ago

Potentially, but it has a lot more health impacts!

zubairq• 3 years ago

wonderful read!

teleforce• 3 years ago

In one of the pictures of the horse drawn fire engine similar to the one that I saw in one of the The Return of Sherlock Holmes episodes namely "The Adventure of the Norwood Builder" indicated the year 1905 in the old photograph with Koch Bros company building at the background. This seems to be rather improbable (in Holmes' unique voice) since Koch Bros company founder will only be five years old at the time according to Wikipedia, unless Koch senior has already had a business before his son or it's totally different company altogether. Fun facts, this particular episode was based on the short story publication around the same time as indicated in the old photograph or 1903 to be exact.

Reminiscences from the end of the horse era in New York City (1952)

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