6th Ave. New York, NY 1903

What happened to our cities? The automotive industry voted us out of our streets.

America: 1900

Our city streets existed as endless open-air marketplaces. Pedestrians shuffled about, conducting their business freely, strolling from place to place. Well developed networks of trains and trolleys moved us efficiently over long distances. Until the introduction of the Model T in 1908, this was largely the status quo.

At first, cars were wildly unpopular within cities. Pedestrians, whose rights of way had never been questioned in the streets, found themselves suddenly interspersed with high-speed steel deathtraps. Cars were essentially the monsters that vowed to trample innocent people in the streets. Take a look at this photo in the New York Times from the early 1920's. It literally depicts a car with a skull faced driver crushing children. At this time parents might think "What kind of idiot would drive in the street where my kids are playing?"