SailorTwain105

by Mark on August 27, 2010 at 12:01 am
Posted In: 2. New York, 1887, Sailor Twain

From Fine Art to Horseshit

(all in a day on the Lorelei!)

So. . .

On the previous post, I left you with a challenging little question about a series of Chinese paintings.

This brought out some very interesting comments from several of you, which I enjoyed.

Would you like a simple answer to what these compositions have in common?

If you re-read the last entry, it might seem so obvious:

*

THEY ARE ALL

EMPTY IN THE MIDDLE.

*

Or at least seemingly empty.

Anyway, thanks for joining in that unusual little exchange about inner and outer landscapes.

***

When the Lorelei docks next, would you like a steward to call a Growler or a Phaeton for you? Or perhaps a Hansom is waiting already?

In 1887, there was a staggering variety of carriages on the streets—more than today’s automobile brands. That’s a Hansom above, in a painting by our friend Childe Hassam.

That is the Basket Phaeton. Elegant, right?


Or you might have the means to build a custom coach for yourself (taken from this lovely online museum):

They say you can tell a lot about a person from their carriage… (Or is that about Good Carriage?) So what would you choose to ride in? Are you more a Surrey or a Clarence Brougham type?

Here is a little window shopping for you…

Now something that doesn’t first come to mind as our 1887 New York romance unfolds—is the humongous manure problem that horse-power brings with it. This interesting little NYTimes article and its links hint at what 150,000 horses producing 25 pounds of doodoo a day might have been like. Nasty.

We don’t often think of it, but it was a major problem big cities could barely contend with. The New Yorker last year had a climate change article which started with the 1880′s NYC manure problem:

(…) the city’s production of horse droppings ran to at least forty-five thousand tons a month. George Waring, Jr., who served as the city’s Street Cleaning Commissioner, described Manhattan as stinking “with the emanations of putrefying organic matter.” Another observer wrote that the streets were “literally carpeted with a warm, brown matting . . . smelling to heaven.” In the early part of the century, farmers in the surrounding counties had been happy to pay for the city’s manure, which could be converted into rich fertilizer, but by the later part the market was so glutted that stable owners had to pay to have the stuff removed, with the result that it often accumulated in vacant lots, providing breeding grounds for flies.

The problem just kept piling up until, in the eighteen-nineties, it seemed virtually insurmountable. One commentator predicted that by 1930 horse manure would reach the level of Manhattan’s third-story windows.

This photo hints at the “carpeting” (taken from here.)

Takes away from the romantic feel of 1887, I know. But only a little. Makes you run for the river, doesn’t it.

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