New York City Before Air-Conditioning
The New Yorker‘s website comments on New York before air-conditioning, and what happened at the moment when it became pervasive. ‘In a Comment from July 4, 1959, A. J. Liebling lamented how “the dodges for coping with the heat that New Yorkers learned in three centuries of summer have become superfluous, and in some cases hazardous. The long drink is an irrelevancy; if you arrive in a bar, after a few steps in the street, longing for a Tom Collins, half a minute of the temperature inside influences you to change to a hot toddy. Cold foods lose their charm as quickly; at the first blast of frozen air, the customer decides to stick to steak.†Liebling, like many people, was struck by the perversity of air-conditioning, which ensures that your winning summer outfit is also “a ringside ticket to the pneumonia ward.‒
