BROOKLYN DREAMS OF ELECTRIC SHEEP (1903)
Brownstone Detectives investigates the history of our clients’ homes.
The story you are about to read was composed from research conducted in the course of one of those investigations.
Do you know the history of YOUR house?
********************************************************************************************************************************
In 1903, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle printed a fantastical futuristic story that gave insight into what Brooklyn’s imaginative residents may have suspected was the future for their borough. Entitled, “Brooklyn in 1999,” it was subtitled, “When Electricity Has Gone Out of Fashion and the B. R. T. Has Air Line Franchises” – a hopeful nod at the speed of progress, as well as a cynical snipe at how, ironically, “nothing ever really changes.” Like most “dreams” of the future, this one was rather reflective of the then-present, albeit including the compulsory automatic-everything and instantaneous air travel. One thing is a certainly, and that was the 1903 Brooklynite’s token view of “the help,” which was, in this case, the omnipresent Irish kitchen girl, who lives on in the form of an automaton with a fairly common Irish name…
“The iron bridget’s out of order again this morning,” complained Mrs. Bobbidge, as her husband came out to the diningroom in his dressing gown and slippers.
“Bother!” was Mr. Bobbidge’s remark. “This’ll make the fourth morning this month that I have been late at the office. He glanced at the clock. It was half past 10. He had only half an hour in which to get his breakfast and reach his desk. “We’ll have to get the landlord to take this thing out and install a new one. It’s eight years old, if it’s a day. Compressed air doesn’t seem to work, half so well for bridgets as good old fashioned electricity. This one takes a whole minute longer to make coffee than the electric one we had, and as to sweeping and dusting, there’s no comparison.”
“Why, I actually had to dust the parlor mantel myself yesterday,” explained Mrs. Bobbidge. “It almost used me up.”
“Yes, it almost makes one want to go back to the old days, when people had servants,” sighed the lord of the establishment, as he looked on the pale face of his helpmate.
“We’ll have to go down to the restaurant again for breakfast,” remarked the wife, as she touched the button that opened the third cupboard closet on the right and an iron arm swung her hat and wrap and diamond earrings into her reach.
“Yes, I suppose so; though one gets awfully tired of the feed down there. Let’s see. Did we ever try that place on the forty-fifth floor of the new flats, over on Hancock street?”
“Why, certainly; don’t you remember? That’s where, they brought on the protose tablets without warming and the caffein drops were half water. Why, we were at the table over there for fully eight minutes that morning.”
“That’s so. Well, lets’ go down and have a tablet of condensed wheat and a drop of concentrated cocoa, and then I must skip. Let’s see. I tan get the overhead at 10:53 or the underground at 10:56. I shan’t be more than a couple of minutes late over in Manhattan.”
And pressing the button that opened the door Mr. Bobbidge pressed the other button that moved Mrs. Bobbidge’s chair into the hall, with his wife in it, of course, then pressed the button that brought up the automatic elevator and trundled Mrs. Bobbidge into it. They lived on the thirty-fourth floor, so it took them only a few seconds to reach the restaurant, where several hundred of the lodgers were already assembled, waiting to be served. Each customer placed his mouth at the aperture of a metal funnel, rising from the center of his table, studied the various buttons with which the table was covered and pressed such of them as were labeled to their fancy. The food, mostly in pellets; was shot into their mouths, “was bolted without chewing and after settling with the cashier the women were trundled back to their apartments, while the men stepped on the moving floor that ran through the office and were shunted into the street, here they stood on the moving sidewalk that carried them to the corner of Court and Montague street, where the row of airships stood straining at their cables like hounds anxious to be out of the leash, while down in the gayly lighted tunnels could he seen the pneumatic trains that were wafted across to the 100 story office building In Manhattan.
“Come to think of it,” muttered Mr. Bobbidge, “the trains were late yesterday. Same old excuse, repairs. I’ll take the air line this morning.”
Pushing by the automatic guard, that took his ticket and swallowed it with a click, the clerk stepped into the car of one of the aeronaves and pulled out his paper. It was the Eagle of 10 o’clock. “Tush!” he said impatiently, crumbling it up and throwing it on the floor. “Here, boy,” he called to the youth at the end of the car, “didn’t you see that this was stale? I don’t want ancient history. Here it is 10:52 o’clock yet you are selling 10 o’clock papers.”
The boy begged pardon and produced the 10:30 edition, which the passenger accepted with a grunt, and sat back in his leather covered easy chair reading the latest from Bulgaria, by wireless. The airship arose with a swift but easy motion, without jar or clank, and the passengers glanced carelessly out of the windows as it arose about a thousand feet, just enough to clear the house tops, and pointed eastward. Down below, in the streets, where the sun never shone, and and where lamps threw a glare of light over the pavement and in at the windows, the people were hurrying by millions. It was nearly 11 o’clock, the time when the shops and offices were opened for the four hours’ work of the day. Mr. Bobbidge glanced impatiently at his watch, then looked out of the window.
“Hello!” he exclaimed. “What the deuce is this? Isn’t this a Manhattan ship?” For below was the vast museum of The Brooklyn Institute, with acres of flowers before it, and the bronze statue of Professor Hooper proudly facing the sea from the pedestal before its door.
“Yes, sir,” answered the guard, “But the company has made a new route for it. We are to pick up passengers in Flatbush – the overflow that can’t get through the tunnels – first.'”
“Five minutes late, if I’m a second,” exclaimed Mr. Bobbidge. “Confound the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company. I suppose it was doing this kind of thing back in the days when they had trolley cars.”
———————————————————————————————————————–
Brownstone Detectives is an historic property research agency. Our mission is to document and save the histories of our clients’ homes. From our research, we produce our celebrated House History Books and House History Reports. Contact us today to begin discovering the history of your home.
