Past and Present: The Horsecar

A Look at Brooklyn, then and now.

Here’s public transportation, 19th century style. Before the subway, the car, before the bus, even the electric trolley, there was the horse drawn trolley, or horsecar. These cars ran along steel tracks like the later electric trolley, but were pulled by the original version of horsepower. The horsecar line in the picture appears to have run from Flatbush Avenue to Greenwood, probably Green-Wood Cemetery, and seems to have hit the high points at the Parade Ground and along Prospect Park. The photograph is from 1885.

By the mid to late 1890’s, electric trolley lines were being built all across Brooklyn. They soon replaced the horse drawn cars, and ran for almost 70 years, even after buses and cars crowded the streets. The last trolley in Brooklyn ran up to the 1950’s.

The first bus was introduced to New York City riders in 1905, with the Fifth Avenue Coach Company running double decker buses on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. New York was the first American city to have buses. By the 1920’s and 30’s, buses were quickly replacing electric trolleys. The two-door bus with the rear engine and flat face was introduced during Fiorello LaGuardia’s administration, in 1935, and he mandated that buses replace all electric track vehicles.

The buses have been updated periodically, with today’s versions equipped with green technology and amenities, with most city buses running as diesel-electric hybrids, or on compressed natural gas, with superior gas mileage and cleaner emissions. Of course, today’s buses also have air conditioning, heat and electric lights, something the horse-drawn coach never had. Still, in spite of all our advances, sometimes the buses run as slowly as any horse drawn vehicle possibly could. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.