[ back ]
Heat wave? What heat wave?
(by Ed Flynn - June 25, 2008)
One of the problems with writing a weekly column is that if you decide to comment on some current event the chances are that by time your column gets read the event won’t be current anymore.
A case in point is this heat wave. As I sit here in my air-conditioned office at home the dial on the thermometer outside has edged past the 90-degree mark for the fourth straight day. It had already qualified as an official heat wave yesterday when the temperature soared into that territory for the third day. Enough already.
But, as I said, by time you read this that heat wave will almost certainly be a thing of the past and we’ll probably be enjoying a stretch of delightfully balmy weather. However, summer has just begun so maybe you’ll want to cut this column out, stick it on your refrigerator and wait until the next heat wave before you read it.
The subject, you see, is air-conditioning. Or more precisely, those days before we had it. Actually, that wasn’t as long ago as you might think but if you’re not old enough to remember those days then you don’t know what a heat wave is really like.
OK, I know there are those who have to work outdoors – roofers and construction crews and the like – but most of us, if we have to venture out at all, go from the comfort of our air-conditioned homes to our air-conditioned cars and trains and buses and on to air conditioned malls and offices with a minimum of time spent sweltering in the heat.
Like many of the other conveniences we take for granted today, air-conditioning was virtually unknown prior to World War II. Hampered by the Great Depression of the 1930s, the introduction of many new consumers products had been placed on hold even though the technology existed. Then during the war, the manufacture of consumer products, even automobiles, was halted completely as the nation’s industries turned to the mass production of weapons. Once the war ended the floodgate opened and new consumer products began to pour onto the market.
Air conditioning is a good example. Before World War II home units were virtually unknown. In 1948, three years after the war had ended, 74,000 window units were sold. By 1953 annual sales had reached 1,045,000. Central air-conditioning included in the construction of new homes, however, didn’t become a standard feature until several decades later.
In those days before air-conditioning it was literally impossible to beat the heat unless you could take the day off and spend it at the beach. Except for a few movie theaters, which hung banners from their marquees in the shape of icicles proclaiming “It’s Cool Inside,” there was no escape. Cars, of course, were not air-conditioned and driving with the windows down provided little relief. Trains and subways as well were without air conditioning and commuting to the city by bus, as I did in those days from River Edge to the Port Authority terminal, was comparable to a trek across the Sahara Desert.
Frequently in the evening, when the buses would be backed up in the Lincoln Tunnel on the way home, the decision passengers would argue over was whether to open the windows and risk asphyxiation from carbon monoxide fumes or close them and suffer from suffocation. What made matters even worse was that back then office workers were expected to “dress appropriately” which meant dresses for women and suits, shirts and ties for men. No one would have dared show up in a New York City office or for a business meeting in shorts or with an open-neck, short sleeve sports shirt. Generally on one of those hot summer evenings I would arrive home with my suit jacket off and draped over a shoulder, my tie loosened and my shirt dripping wet with sweat. Not a pretty picture.
Then at home, where the heat had been building up inside all day, about the only relief would be a cold drink and an electric fan that moved the hot air around. Since hot air rises, the upstairs bedrooms would be intolerable and frequently my wife and I and our two little daughters would move out to our screened-in porch, listening to the sound of a far-off train or a barking dog and trying to catch a few hours sleep in canvas beach chairs until eventually a cooling breeze might arrive to make our bedrooms bearable.
Think I’m exaggerating? Ask your own grandparents. And, come winter, remind me to tell you about those “good old days” when we had to heat the house with coal.
[ back ]
