Hot Time in the Old Town - Edward Kohn [92]
As the heat relinquished its grip on the city, New Yorkers once again focused on the dangers of industrial society. Two more trains collided over in New Jersey. An electrician of the Steinway Electric Railroad got caught in the powerhouse’s machinery and was “crushed in a terrible manner.” In Cleveland, a group of strikers ambushed the strikebreakers at the Brown Holsting Works, killing two. Closer to home, at Ninety-Seventh Street, a two-year-old girl rolled off a pile of sand next to her house and into the path of an ice wagon, which trampled her to death. While the heat may have finished killing innocents, the industrial city, with its rushing trains and whirring machinery, retained its capacity to murder and maim.
Rain broke the heat wave decisively. “After more than a week of drought and death-dealing heat,” the Times said, “rain fell early [this] morning and again in the afternoon and brought to the suffering millions of the Greater New-York the first relief they have had since the hot wave’s arrival.” On Thursday night, New Yorkers had watched the clouds gather and produce frequent flashes of lightning. But no rain fell, as the humidity rose and threatened to make Friday another killer day of heat. Finally, at 3:00 AM the rain began to fall, the air cooled, and a breeze swept the streets. “It was not a boisterous breeze,” the paper observed, “but it was stronger and fresher than had been known in a week, and people were grateful.” The breeze actually penetrated into the open windows of the tenements, and cleared some of the foul and dead air that had long been trapped inside. The rain stopped by morning, and as men and women left for work, clouds still blocked the sun. It was a good omen for a cooler day.
City department heads gathered again on Friday in Mayor Strong’s office to hear a report from Theodore Roosevelt on the previous evening’s distribution of free ice. Roosevelt said the ice had been distributed “in a satisfactory manner” and called for the city to purchase and distribute more ice that day. After the experience of Thursday night, President Charles Wilson of the Board of Health came to the conclusion that ice need not be distributed in every precinct. Based on Thursday’s demand, Wilson drew up a schedule of the amount of ice to be distributed at each station house. Wealthy “brownstone” precincts, such as the Fifteenth, Seventeenth, and Nineteenth, would receive no ice, while more sparsely populated districts, such as around Liberty Street downtown, would receive only three tons. In contrast, the poorest and most densely populated districts would that night each receive as much as eleven tons of ice. Cut up into approximately ten-pound pieces, this would mean the station houses at Eldridge Street and Delancey Street would each be able to serve more than 2,000 people.
Roosevelt reported the difficulty his policemen had detecting fraud among the applicants for ice, unless the police were personally acquainted with them. Roosevelt noted instances when several children from the same family were sent for free ice, which was subsequently resold by their unscrupulous parents. Roosevelt also cited two cases of children of affluent parents applying for ice. One was the daughter of a wealthy plumber, and the other the daughter of a contractor. To prevent such deception, Roosevelt had ordered patrolmen to search out the poorest families on their beats and give them tickets for the ice. Roosevelt ordered that widows with large families be given priority.
That evening, the ice distribution commenced at 6:00. In all the precincts the supply of ice was exhausted by midnight. In the more crowded districts, such as the Seventh, Eleventh, Twelfth, and Thirteenth, although each received ten or eleven tons of ice, supplies quickly ran out. As early as 4:00, the neighborhood children began to gather around the station houses. They carried tin pans, pails, baskets, wash boilers, and similar receptacles. The Times gave a detailed description: “These children were a study. Some were fairly clean, more were very dirty.