On Sunday 19 December 2010 22:25, JC Dill wrote: > On 19/12/10 8:31 PM, Chris Adams wrote: > > Look up pictures of New York City in the early days of electricty. > > There were streets where you couldn't hardly see the sky because of all > > the wires on the poles. > > Can you provide a link to a photo of this situation? >
It wasn't the earlier days of electricity persay, it was the early days the telegraph (late 1800s and early 1900s). Dozens, if not hundreds, of different telegraph companies raced put up different wires and poles to claim the market (and sometimes cut-down each others wires). Fraught with fear of completely losing any view of the sky and the dangers of so much shoddy work over citizens heads (wires would frequently fall in storms and such), New York and many other cities began restricting the number of providers that could service a given area. The "classic" New York telegraph wiring nightmare image: http://www.vny.cuny.edu/Search/search_res_image.php?id=363 Other images: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/onceandfutureweb/database/seca/case3-artifacts/photoslg/photo1.jpg http://www.maggieblanck.com/NewYork/SU.html http://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2009/12/12/when-the-city-was-criss-crossed-by-wires/ http://www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/graphics/photos0708/blizzard_1888h.jpg Adrian