New York City before cars - vehicles, photographs, prints and posters, PaineWebber Art Gallery, New York, New York

Magazine Antiques, August, 1999 by Allison Eckardt Ledes

Legal parking places in New York City were not always as scarce as they are today, for until the middle of the nineteenth century privately owned horse-drawn carriages were the province of only the wealthiest New Yorkers. An exhibition that looks back to that era is on view until September 10 at the PaineWebber Art Gallery in New York City. It is entitled The Carriage Era in New York and comprises eight horse-drawn vehicles, photographs, prints, posters, coaching accouterments, and clothing loaned by the Museums at Stony Brook, in Stony Brook, New York, which has one of the most important collections of horse-drawn vehicles in the country.

The industrial revolution made possible machines that could mass produce pans for carriages and their interiors, thereby significantly reducing the cost of these vehicles. Buggies, for example, could be purchased for as little as twenty-five dollars. Just as automobiles are today, carriages were made in a wide variety of styles and were status symbols.

Central Park, which incorporated carriage roads, opened in 1859. It thereafter became the fashionable place to be seen in a vehicle befitting one's station. A description published in the magazine Hub allowed that during any given afternoon one could observe in the park: "four-in-hands, tandems, t-carts, gigs, phaetons, mail-coaches, and the many other vehicles which the professional sporting man looks upon scornfully, but which the true swell prizes and prepares as carefully as he does his costume. And it is the difference in what might be considered the minor details of these equipages which determines exactly what status a man is to have who makes pretensions to rank high as an arbiter of the customs of his fellows."

Also traversing the streets of New York were commercial vehicles: horse-drown coaches that served as the city's first mass transit system and delivery vehicles. Among the latter included in this exhibition is an extracts and perfumes wagon of 1900 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED], which contains small compartments for the storage and display of samples.

The New York Coaching Club, founded in 1875 by Colonel Delancey Astor Kane and William Jay, held meets beginning in 1876. Their routes began at lower Fifth Avenue and continued north on Riverside Drive, ending in Pelham, or proceeded east, terminating in Long Island. Their feminine counterpart, the Ladies' Four-in-Hand Driving Club, founded in 1901, also held meets that began at the Colony Club.

In 1859 more than forty companies in New York City manufactured about five thousand carriages a year. The most celebrated firm was Brewster and Company, which moved from New Haven, Connecticut, to Broome Street (with showrooms on Broadway). They filled custom orders that included monograms and crests, and they customized rain aprons, parasol tops, and related paraphernalia.

The manufacture of carriages called for a number of specialized skills: the body maker designed the carriage and constructed the wood frame and panels; the blacksmith fashioned the mechanical parts, including springs, axles, and the like; the wheelwright made the wooden, iron, and steel wheels; the painter executed the ornamentation; and the upholsterer crafted the seating upholstery and, if called for, interior window curtains. Accessories were also made or retailed in New York City. The exhibition includes horse blankets made by William Menger of Brooklyn and stable fixtures made by J. L. Mott of New York City.

There is no catalogue of this exhibition.