Brooklyn Has Had Seven Ages of Its Travel






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Brooklyn Standard Union ­ Anniversary Issue

From Stage Coach Days to Airport Days, via Horse Car, "L", Trolley, Subway
and Motor Bus

The Seven Ages of Brooklyn Travel
1. The Stage Coach.
2. The Horse Car.
3. The Elevated Train.
4. The Trolley Car.
5. The Subway Train.
6. The Motor Bus.
7. The Airplane.

Brooklyn's Seven Ages of Travel have had their ups and downs.
But the general trend has been toward faster and more furious modes of
getting from one given point to another within the confines of the present
borough.
It is a far cry from the picturesque stage coaches with prancing steeds,
breezing through the woodlands, to the suffocating experience of being
whisked through cavernous recesses under the streets to the accompaniment of
metallic shrieks and roars in iron projectiles propelled by electricity.

Seventh Near at Hand.
But the Seventh Age is near at hand, and the open freshness, the free clear
air, is once again beckoning to the Brooklynite.
The traveler is about to burst from the subway cocoon to become the flying
chrysalis of to-morrow.
Early in the nineteenth century the long journeys to Flatbush,
Williamsburgh, and East New York were accompanied by stage coach and
convenient "half way houses" and taverns.
The forerunner of the horse car was one of the omnibus lines between Fulton
and South ferries, in 1845.
On July 3, 1854, the stage lines began to give way to the Myrtle Avenue,
Flushing Avenue, Fulton Street and Fulton Avenue horse car line.

The Old Plank Roads.
About this time the plank roads, long considered the utmost in easy riding
roadbeds, were staring into the face of oblivion as an emancipated Brooklyn
was preparing to travel on iron tracks by definite schedules and with speedy
transfer of horses at regular points, so that there would be no delay.
Crews became so expert in switching the horses that the passengers of the
horse car lines seldom realized the car was slowing down.
The town was getting speedy ­ yes, sirree!
In 1881 the horsecar was getting a trifle slow and there was much talk, pro
and con, on the subject of elevated steam roads.  The locomotive was taking
the people off the ground and up into the dizzy heights of a three-story
building while it sizzled merrily along, with a one-inch iron pipe railing
all along the route to, no doubt, keep the train and its precious cargo from
falling into the street.

We Became Trolley Dodgers.
Shortly after 1883 the city began to get interested in electricity and it
wasn't long before most of the town was back down on the ground again
zooming along in the new-fangled electric trolley cars.
Here were the Juggernauts of the age!
Horses ran away, children as well as grown up were getting under the front
wheels, with the result that it was a toss-up as to how long these engines
of destruction would be permitted to run.
One form of safety "cow catcher" was being tried out after the other to keep
half of the population from going to Heaven via the downtown street cars.

Trolley Outing Rule.
The trolley to Coney or Rockaway, however, was the big thrill of its time as
the motorman let 'er out with the doo-jigger wide open and breezed along at
the dizzy pace of fifteen miles an hour.
Back once more on the ground, it wasn't long before the eternal yen for
avoiding traffic obstruction and more speed in travel brought forth the idea
of going into the bowels of the earth.
Early in the present century, the bravest of the brave dared the horrors of
a train ride from New York, under the river to Borough Hall.
Very timorously a committee, a mayor and some daring folk stepped into a
train of subway cars which roared their way under the East River to Brooklyn
­ and to the amazement of many, no water came in through the windows.
It was the day of the awesome word "third-rail."

Bus Progress Hangs Back.
Somewhere between the subway and the airplane is the era of the "bus" ­ that
many-passengered automobile, lineal descendant of the "horse-less carriage"
which men and boys stoned as fidgety pioneers piloted them down the
parkways.  The bus age has scarcely realized its destiny as yet.  Plans to
cover all of Brooklyn with routes are on paper, but officials are strangely
reluctant to permit their use.
Finally we face the seventh age ­ the era of aerial conquest.
Brooklyn's citizens have traveled on the earth, over it, in it and through
the air above it.
There is nothing left unless a government with a distorted sense of romance
decides to flood the streets and provide gondolas and motorboats.
Meanwhile it prepares for a bright future of Brooklyn with its first airport
at Barren Island.
More airports will follow ­ and the yearning for speed in travel will
probably result in housetop stations for planes ­ before ten years have
passed.
The commuter leaving his roof to go to work in Borough Hall is no less
possible than was the citizen who cranked his car only yesterday.


Transcriber: Mimi Stevens
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