March 24, 2011

coaching in 1898

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I found this interesting entry in the March 19, 1898, issue of Rider & Driver:

The four-horse coach Pioneer will start from the Holland house, 5th Avenue and 32nd Street [in New York City], on Monday, April 11, at 10 a.m., leaving Ardsley on return, at 3:15 p.m., and arriving at the Holland House at 6 p.m. The coach will make daily trips, Sundays excepted, until June 4. This coach stops to take up and set down passengers anywhere on the road except between the Holland House and 59th Street. The route will be via Fifth Avenue, Central Park, Harlem, Washington Bridge, King’s Bridge, Van Cortlandt, Yonkers, Hastings, and Dobb’s Ferry. Single trip $3, round trip $5. Box seat $1 extra each way. Passengers are cautioned to be on time.

The public four-horse coach Good Times will begin its regular trips between the Waldorf-Astoria, New York, entrance No 2, 34th Street, and Woodmansten Inn, Westchester, on Monday, April 4, at 10:30 a.m. sharp. The season will continue with daily runs, Sundays excepted, until June 25. Daily time table will be as follows:

Departure from Waldorf-Astoria, 10:30 a.m.; arrival Woodmansten Inn, 1:00 p.m.; departure Woodmansten Inn, 3:30 p.m.; arrival Waldord-Astoria, 5:30.

The route of the Good Times will be as follows: Going out, via Fifth Avenue to Central Park, to 72nd Street to Riverside Drive, with stop of five minutes at Grant’s Tomb, to Manhattanville, to St. Nicholas Avenue and Kingsbridge Road, across Washington Bridge to Bronx Park and Morris Park to Woodmansten. Returning, via Jerome (Central) Avenue, Macomb’s Dam Bridge (Central Avenue Bridge), 7th Avenue, and Central Park East Drive. The fares will be single outside $3, inside $2; round trip outside $5, inside $3.50; box seat $1 extra each way. The coach will stop to pick up and set down passengers en route. The guard will book parcels. Seats may be booked at the office of the Waldorf-Astoria. A special $1.50 coach luncheon will be served at the Woodmansten Inn. We are requested to announce the following nota bene — Coach starts on time.

Mayor Van Wyck and Hon. George C. Clausen have issued licenses for running the public stage coaches Pioneer and Good Times from the Holland House and Waldorf-Astoria, respectively, through New York and the parks to Ardsley Casino at Tarrytown-on-the-Hudson and Woodmansten Inn, Westchester.

… to be continued tomorrow …

 

March 23, 2011

Royal Wedding fever

Posted by Jennifer under miscellaneous | Tags: |
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With the wedding of Britain’s Prince William and Kate Middleton just over a month away, are you feeling the heat of Royal Wedding fever? It seems you can find wedding-related stories everywhere you look these days.

This CNN video features the Royal Mews and a close-up look at the carriage that will carry the newlyweds away from the ceremony and off to their new life together.

 

March 21, 2011

those horseless carriages

Posted by Jennifer under history | Tags: |
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Thanks to CAA members Jerry & Rita Trapani for alerting us to this wonderful old video. Be sure to look for both the traditional Hansom Cab and the “Hansom Cab” automobile taxis.

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According to the blog where Jerry & Rita found this (which, in turn, was quoting the Library of Congress): “This may be the first annual automobile parade, held on November 4, 1899, in downtown Manhattan. At least ten different makes and models are seen, including electric and steam-powered machines. Only three years earlier, in 1896, Henry Ford, Charles Brady King, Alexander Winton and Ransom Eli Olds had each introduced their gasoline cars. In 1900, the first National Auto Show was held at Madison Square Garden and the favorites were the electrics and the steamers.”

To see the entire blog post where Jerry & Rita found this video, check out last Wednesday’s entry at The Vanderbilt Cup Races.

 

March 21, 2011

Happy Spring!

Posted by Jennifer under miscellaneous
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We’ve had such a loooong, cold winter this year, that today’s “bonus” post (the first of two for today) is one in which we welcome the first full day of spring.

These photos are all from yesterday morning.

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March 20, 2011

black or green?

Posted by Jennifer under Lexington & KHP | Tags: |
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… Or should I say, “basketball, basketball, basketball”?

Last summer and fall, in the lead-up to the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games, I offered occasional posts about things going on here in Lexington; these were usually related to horses, the WEG, local food & restaurants, or basketball. (You might think that about all we do here in Lexington is eat good food, watch horses, and watch basketball. You might be right.)

If you’ve missed these sorts of posts, today’s should help fill the void.

In order to keep up with the challenge of posting something here every day, I try to prepare weekend posts during the week and schedule them to go up on Saturday and Sunday. I didn’t quite make it that far this week, and so I’m writing this on Saturday.

Because I don’t have Internet access at home, I’m sitting in a lovely corner of the delightful Cuppa: A Tea Café on Jefferson Street. They have sandwiches, homemade scones, coffee drinks, and a huge array of black, green, and white teas. You can drink your tea by the mug, or by the (small or large) pot. If you go the teapot route, you even get to pick out your own teacup and saucer from the china cabinets in each room.

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I don't have any photos of my food today, but this is the corner of Cuppa that I'm looking at as I drink my green earl grey tea

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Outside the window is a fairly steady stream of basketball fans, walking to and fro. I can’t tell, of course, where each group is headed, but there are several options: the state high school basketball championship games are all day and into the night at Rupp Arena (just down the street), and there’s a great pizza joint down the street in the other direction — and a pub across the street from that — with TVs that I’m sure are showing the UK game. As I write this, the Kentucky Wildcats are playing a close game against West Virginia in the second round of the NCAA Championships. Go Cats!!

Having now caught you up briefly on two of our three main interests here in Lexington, we’ll head back to the third on Monday: horses, of course.

 

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