On October 31, 1956, the last streetcar navigating the busy streets of Brooklyn ended its route for the final time. At this point in New York City’s transportation history, streetcars were almost entirely obsolete: they ran on fixed routes and through the center of busy streets. And while they had been supplanted by buses and subways, for a time, streetcars were king in the New York City transportation system.
Public transportation began on horseback. The earliest fare-based vehicle to operate in New York City was the omnibus, a closed carriage that seated 15 and was pulled by horses. Much like city buses today, passengers tugged on a cable to request a stop. Unlike city buses, these cables were attached firmly to the driver’s ankle, who no doubt found it at least a little distracting to have his leg constantly pulled back as he was trying to navigate the busy city streets. This, combined with the fact that passengers regularly ignored the 15 person limit and packed into and all around the carriage, made the omnibus an unpleasant experience for passenger, driver, and likely the horses as well.
Omnibuses soon made way for the next great advancement in New York’s transportation technology: the horsecar. These were really the first incarnation of the streetcar; they were larger than the omnibus and rode on rails that were set into the surface of the street. This reduced the amount of effort necessary to pull a horsecar, enabling them to take on more passengers and travel further without tiring the horses as much. Still, they had their drawbacks. Horses were slow movers when lugging tens of people around city streets, especially so on hills. The search continued for a better, faster way of carrying people around town.
With the advent of steam power, horses were replaced as the main means of locomotion by the cable. Centrally located cable houses would keep a cable moving at a steady clip, and cable car operators would attach their cars to the cable when they wanted to move. It was a huge leap forward for public transport, as it was the first version that didn’t rely on horse power, but it too had its flaws. Imagine if your car had two settings: off and on, and on was a constant speed. This is what life was like for the cable car operator and passengers. There was no graceful acceleration, and no smooth stops. The car was either traveling at its one speed or it wasn’t. This proved especially hazardous going around corners, where the car traveled at top speed the entire time. While passengers were getting to their destinations more quickly, they were no doubt getting tossed around quite a bit on their way there.
Salvation finally came in the form of the streetcar. It rode on the same tracks as the cable cars and horsecars before, but was powered by an overhead connection to the electrical grid. Drivers could slow down and speed up and there were no horses to be fed or switched out when one got tired. They were even much faster than cable cars, as they could slow down for corners and make higher speeds on the straights. After making their debut in the late 1800’s, trolleys, as the electric streetcars became known (named for the “Trawler” that reached up to contact the electrical lines), were the dominant form of public transport in the city until the 1930’s. They were big, fast (for the time), and reasonably reliable and comfortable.
While they were the best solution in the moment, trolleys would eventually be outclassed by other means of transport. The subway, which opened its first section in 1904, grew to become the more convenient means for traveling longer distances within the city. Buses, which ran on cheap gasoline and had the freedom of driving on the road rather than tracks, soon supplanted the trolley for local trips. Buses could pick up and discharge passengers at the curb, while the trolley did so in the middle of the street. And because they required no electricity, buses mean the extensive network of unsightly overhead cabling could be removed from streets. The last trolley route shut down in 1956, and while streetcars were an integral part of this city for decades, their tracks have been ripped up and their wires pulled down. For a city that is always in motion, there is little time to consider sentimentality and history while moving forward at a blistering pace.
