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Photos: When Telephone Wires Took Over Manhattan
By
Jen Carlson
Published Mar 3, 2014
Modified Mar 3, 2014
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By
Jen Carlson
Published Mar 3, 2014
Modified Mar 3, 2014
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(Courtesy of the Library of Congress)
New Yorkers were introduced to the telephone in the late 1800s, with 271 subscribers around 1877, and eventually a bajillion telephone wires to service that growing number. Wires were not consolidated, and they all ran above ground, creating a chaotic scene just above street level. How does that old Hopi prophecy go? "Near the day of Purification, there will be cobwebs spun back and forth in the sky."
(Courtesy of the Library of Congress)
According to MetroPostcard, "Early telephone wires could not carry the multiple number of individual messages that they do today. As phones grew popular wires were strung out in great number all over city streets and the poles that supported them required a number of cross bars. This visual blight was also dangerous as heavy snow could bring them down. Before they disappeared by being buried beneath city streets they were almost always retouched out of postcard images." It was the Blizzard of 1888 that had officials hatching a plan to bring the wires underground, because...
(Courtesy of the MCNY)
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telephone wires
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Jen Carlson
Jen Carlson is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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