“Once more, the picturesque is to yield to the utilitarian. That thrilling sight – three plunging horses drawing engine or hook and ladder – one of the few thrilling sights to be seen in our prosaic streets, is soon to become a thing of the past. Within the next five or six years, there will not be a fire horse in Greater New York. The gasoline motor will do the work of these old favorites.”– New York Times, February 19, 1911
Archive for the ‘Horse Tales’ Category
1922: Waterboy, Danny Beg, and the Last Fire Horses of the New York Fire Department
Posted: 24th January 2015 by The Hatching Cat in Horse TalesTags: Brooklyn Fire Department, Engine Company 205, FDNY, FDNY history, fire horses, New York History, Pacific Hose Company
9
1901: The Thespian Horse College at Ben-Hur Stables in Gramercy Park
Posted: 26th April 2014 by The Hatching Cat in Horse TalesTags: Ben-Hur, Doc Potter, Dr. Martin J. Potter, Dr. S.S. Field, Hippodrome, horse story, New York History
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, when the use of live horses and other animals in grand productions on the big stage was all the rage, a thespian college for quadruped actors was just what the doctors ordered. Drs. Martin J. Potter and Samuel S. Field, to be specific.
1912: When New York’s First Public Christmas Tree Was Delivered by Horses
Posted: 6th December 2013 by The Hatching Cat in Birds and Pigeons, Horse TalesTags: Christmas tree, Emilie D. Lee Herreshoff, Gwent Male Glee Singers, Madison Square Park, New York History, Tree of Light
I previously wrote about four reindeer on display at the iconic Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center, which made its debut in 1931. Although the Rockefeller Center tree in New York always gets all of the media’s attention, the “Tree of Light” at Madison Square Park was in fact America’s first community Christmas tree. This tree […]
1909: The Prospect Park Horse that Decided the Mortal Fate of Patrolman Artemas Fish
Posted: 9th November 2013 by The Hatching Cat in Horse TalesTags: 19 Leonard Street, Artemas Fish, Brooklyn, Franklin Depot, New York History, NYPD history, Prospect Park Police, Sidney New York
The amazing story of Artemas Fish, a mounted patrolman for what was then the more rural Prospect Park Police Precinct in Brooklyn.
1930: Bill, the U.S. Life-Saving Services Horse of Fire Island, New York
Posted: 19th October 2013 by The Hatching Cat in Horse TalesTags: Blue Point, breeches buoy, Coast Guard history, Fire Island, Lyle Gun, New York History, Sumner Kimball, U.S. Life-Saving Services
The U.S. Life-Saving Services – a forerunner to the U.S. Coast Guard — was established by Congress in 1871 in response to the high loss of life in ship wrecks along America’s coastlines, particularly on the Atlantic coast. Bill was just one of the many horses that served with the USLSS.
