On Demand
Open Phones: Life Before Air Conditioning
Mayor Bloomberg knows you'll find this shocking, but people from his generation went to schools in buildings without air conditioning. As the first heat wave of the summer breaks, we'll talk about the history of the AC with Chrysanthe Broikos, curator of a 1999 exhibit on the air conditioner at the National Building Museum in Washington.
What was your life like before AC? Did your kids melt in public schools this week? Comment below!
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No problem - but I didn't grow up here - I grew up up north where if summer days were hot, we had so many trees - they really do make a huge difference - no comparison to NYC summer (but then our winters were pretty long and brutally cold - however, kids don't notice that much, I don't think)
Also I find that good fans can replace air conditioning in a lot of cases, but am grateful for a/c when it's unbearably humid. If you go to Poets Walk in Central Park, under the Elm trees, on a hot day, you will see what I mean about what trees do; trees are nature's a/c.
Before central air, my siblings and I hid out in the basement (we grew up in CT) until the sun went down.
I hope this isn't one of those "I did it, so should you!" things. Well I went to school in no AC and you know what, I went to schools built in the 1809s and early 1900 where the ceilings were about 15' or higher and the heat wasn't so close to our heads as it is in many of the newer schools. Also not having AC we were adapted more to the heat. I believe in evolution and I believe that after the 50 years or more of AC our bodies have evolved to not be able to deal well in the kind of heat we get. It also became hotter later than it does now. That's another thing, there are a lot of hotter and more humid days now than there were when I was a kid in the Bronx in the 50s and when the Mayor was a kid wherever he was a kid. That said even though we might have been less sensitive to the heat, it was still hot and difficult to work in that kind of climate.
Im 30, i grew up in the city and attended both public school (through 7th grade) and private school(untill i graduated)- neither had AC, we survived fine with full school days. My father, a retiered NYC public school teacher, taught in classrooms without AC, including some (not all - especally later) summer school classrooms. Open a window, run a fan, drink some water it will all be OK. Parents coddle their children - whatever happened to darwin?
I grew up in southeast Queens during the 1960s. no one in elementary school or junior high ever fainted, and the schools never closed early because of the heat. but I'm not sure if schools were shut down after the big snow storm in February 1969 (now know as the Lindsay snow storm) because the road weren't cleared for days. but schools were never closed because it was too cold either.
Provide your own self-air conditioning: SIP ice water all day long. It makes a real difference and will raise your body energy levels.
And the cooling shade of trees, trees, trees, yes!
Re: Bloomberg, he was a kid 100 years ago when it wasn't as hot, he grew up in New England where it is cooler and he probably did not attend school all the way to the END OF JUNE!
My life could be measured in central-air years (growing up) and window-unit years (now). Before I went off to college, I never even knew central air was not standard. I didn't have any AC when I lived in Chicago, but I lived close enough to Lake Michigan that I could rely on the lake breezes to blow through my apartment. That combined with ceiling fans made a big difference.
I grew up w/out A/C in PA. NoA/C at home, none in school, none in college.
My father went through a daily routine. Close all windows and drapes by 8am. Open basement door, keep fan in attic going, pulling cool air through the house. Open everything at night with any fan in front of windows to bring evening air into the house.
I still don't have A/C in my house. I have a dehumidifier and keep my father's routine going.
I do work in A/C and hate it.
before A/C if you could afford in you left town. i wish i had a summer house.
Life without AC would be no problem if we could only have a teeny tiny fan for air circulation! :)
Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn in the 1950s:
We took cool baths after dark, at about 9 p.m., and went to bed with all the windows open and exhaust fans on the floors (not blocking the windos) to circulate air. Everyone woke up at dawn, because after that it was too hot to sleep.
My Catholic school suspended the uniform rules in June, so we girls all wore sleeveless, flowered dresses to school. Fans in each room, with windows open, but not much work got done once the temperatures hit 85 degrees. (The mayor may have forgotten those days of doing puzzles and reading quietly rather than having lessons.)
My late mother would never use air-conditioning, nor will my 84 year-old aunt. To the older generation, air-conditioning is an unnecessary expense!
Unfortunately, I don't remember life without air-conditioning. My Mom always had it cranked so high I would wear sweaters, socks, etc. in the house during the summer (NW'ern PA). Now that I live in Brooklyn, I try to sweat it out as much as possible so that my body can learn how to deal with more heat. With global warming, this will be advantageous preparation.
This is just crazy. Those kids can handle the heat. It's not that bad, entire island nations in the tropic have no AC at all.
These kids today demand cell phones and have so many demands. Every demand in the book except for the right to learn.
Fact is, it's their future. If they want to waste resources they will pay the consequences.
Bloomberg can be silly sometimes - we should fry little kids because he remembers when there was no A/C and Connestoga wagons crossed the prairie? He should shut off the A/C at City Hall if he's so tough - see how that works out.
I do see Weingarten's point in terms of the past few days - schools aren't open in July and August specifically because it is too hot and humid, so good luck keeping kids and teachers alert and motivated during extreme humidity. However as an adult, I hate air conditioning (except in the subway, where it's needed). Too many offices and businesses crank up the AC so high I often have to carry sweaters with me during the summer. I would rather use a fan, drink lots of lemonade, and dress in summer clothes, instead of being cold during the summer!
Hey Brian
As an author with several books on the Jersey Shore that was the place to be in the hot old days
On one day in 1880,
The Plymouth Rock, the luxury steamer owned by Jim Fisk that transported sweltering New York residents from the the pier at West 23rd to Long Branch turned back to Manhattan with 1600 excursionists because the hotels were full to capacity
The round trip was 10 cents
"The kids need more time in school, not less." Does the mayor think that just because the kids are in school in 100 degree weather that they are actually learning anything or able to concentrate. Not likely.
Not only has AC changed and made life in the south possible, but it has also left it better equipped to deal with the kinds of weather extremes like the one most recently seen in new york.
By comparison, very few buildings in the south rely on those window AC units. Instead, central heat and air are the norm. The age of our structures has a lot to do with it.
New York is only really hot like the south for maybe 3-4 weeks each year. But those 3-4 weeks are so much harder to handle in nyc than the 6 months of summer we get down here.
Continued from # 3. I forgot we also had those dark green shades that the teacher would draw to keep the sun out of the room. This along with those high ceilings mentioned in #3 helped keep the heat out of the room. As the shades were drawn if you were sitting in the sun you could just feel the heat diminishing.
They would close Broadway during the summer before air conditioning.
When I was a young lad (in Philadelphia) I loved air-conditioning though my family was one of the last on our block to get one (in the late '60s). I am now 52 and in the last few years I have lost all tolerance for the cold and have gained much tolerance for heat. I have no problem with 80-degree weather. New Yorkers, I have found, love air-conditioning. I have literally cried after riding on one of your &$#@ buses because though the temperature outside was only in the upper 60s(!), the bus driver had the AC on, full-force. I freeze on your subways and in your restaurants. You people are a bunch of mutants.
Brian
When I worked for the NYC Dept. Of Social Services in 1968 we had Summer Hours from June through September (4 o'clock end of workday) because of the heat. Our union contract also specified a maximum interior heat, I believe it was 85 degrees. If the heat rose above that we could leave. The shop steward often read the thermometer with a match under it because it was in a dark corner :)
Mark
Henry Miller write a book called "The Air Conditioned Nightmare."
I grew up in North Carolina and only had AC for 3 of 12 years of school. And I'm not that old, I graduated from high school in 1985. When school started at the end of August the teachers wouldn't turn on any lights in the classrooms and every class had 1 or 2 fans. I remember a few times when the teacher would just tell us to put our heads on our desks it was so hot.
Oh yeah, my college dorm room in North Carolina didn't have AC either.
I'm 27. I went to public school my whole life. I had no AC in elementary, though we had had window units in middle school and central air in High School. It certainly sucked to be hot as a kid, but we managed. We need to make our kids tougher. And we haven't evolved to be accustomed to AC. That's not how evolution works.
I grew up in Illinois in a farm town, and we were always done with school by the first week of June and never started again until the last week of August or first week of September, so we never had issues with heat waves.
my sister teaches at Abraham Lincoln High out at Coney Island and they still don't have air conditioners.. or computers.. or dry erase boards.
I grew up in Arlington VA. At exam time, I would sweat so profusely onto my "blue book" that I could barely write on it.
What about OSHA - do they have requirements for temperatures in office buildings? If they do, those rules should apply to schools too.
I think the humidity is worse now (thanks to pollution).
I went to high school in the Bronx. We didn't have any AC. I remember one incident where my english teacher lost his pinkie finger while trying to open a window. It was horrible. I can't get it out of my mind even after all these years!
I grew up in Georgia. Though my family home had central ac, neither of my grandmothers had ac in their homes. One lived in a house made of concrete block (!) and it was always dark and cool in there. There was a powerful fan in the kitchen window. THe other grandmother had the most wonderful attic fan that worked SO well and made this lovely rumbly sound that was great to sleep to---that Grandfather made the MOST delicious homemade ice cream that was WAY better than ac! Also we went to movie theaters that had ac---community cooling--- that was nice!
Here in NYC we live on the 1st floor in the back of the building so it stays darker and cooler and I love my two ceiling fans. AC makes me feel too cut off from the real world,
I grew up in Brooklyn in the 40's and 50's and summer evenings were outdoors with our friends and neighbors.Everyone bonded. The house was hot and my upstairs room was VERY hot but I put my pillow on the window sill and felt like I slept under the stars.
I spent several years living in a tropical area of Central America, and my observation is that while I suffered from the heat when I first moved there, after a while my body adjusted and I didn't feel so hot all the time. I think that having so many places air-conditioned prevents our bodies from becoming calibrated to the heat, and we suffer more from the constant back-and-forth from A/C to the natural environment. It just seems hotter by comparison.
I grew up in North Carolina and my elementary school didn't have air conditioning, but if it got over 90 degrees in the afternoon, they would let us out early. I remember children were passing out and vomiting from the heat at my fifth grade graduation.
The school year also ended at the end of May.
Scarsdale schools were closed at noon on Tuesday. My 16 year old daughter was scheduled to work for our elderly neighbors who were having a dinner party that evening. She serves and cleans up. They don't have any A/C. The had the party, and they thought it wasn't that hot. He is 97 and she is 88. My 16 year thought it was very HOT!
Hey, remember when the subway had no AC?
I went to school in the south.. you just adjust, eventually you acclimate.
I grew up in Philadelphia, in one of those little row houses on one of those tiny side streets. I have two hot-weather memories.
When there was a heat wave, it never cooled off, even at night. So, because nobody could sleep indoors, EVERYONE on the block was outside, all night long it seemed. My special memory is when someone would (illegally) open the fire hydrant at the end of the block. We kids would play in the water, and the adults would cool their feet in the water running in the gutter. There was a festival atmosphere.
My second memory is of my father dragging our mattresses down to the first floor during a heat wave so we could all get some sleep.
I was born in NY in 1954. My mother and I would go to the movies in the Bronx to cool off, only to face that horrible wall of heat light on the way out. Years later, in the 70's my boyfriend and I would leave the tub full of cold water and flop on our foam mattress on the floor in front of the fan. Then someone stole the fan out of the window.
While I grew up in NJ my parents came from the south and the school year ther was based on the growing season which required that the majority of children be in the fields during planting season. The school year still starts earlier and ends earlier than in the north because of that tradition.
Brian,
I went to high school in Brisbane Australia, and we had no air conditioning, in a climate that is routinely above 95 and often over 100 degrees. It was hot, but we made it through - classroom design is key - having cross ventilation etc. Air conditioning is a huge waist of energy!
Brian-
All the has to happen for Public schools to put in air conditioning is have one kid faint.
They will be so scared of a lawsuit from the parents that every public school will have at least one air conditioner in every single classroom.
Guaranteed!
-Paulo
What about school crowding and increased body heat? NYC Schools these days have more students per square foot then at any other point in history. That plus global warming and greater city heat (from asphalt, pollution, etc.), makes for a hotter classroom today.
How dare the "education mayor" suggest that keeping kids comfortable isn't an important part of creating excellent learning environments. I organize teachers for a living and hear their stories of kids and teachers fainting, building electricity shorting out when one AC is turned on, etc. etc. As a former teacher, I remember none of us even tried to teach much during a heat wave because it was so useless when the kids were sitting in their own sweat and their eyelids were drooping. Lots of easy games, movies and read-aloud. Is this a real use of school time?
I grew up in Rhode Island, near the ocean so it was relatively mild. Still, it would get quite hot toward the end of the school year. We had no air conditioning in our public school. What I remember as problematic was not just the heat, but the attitude of teachers/administration: we were teenagers who were miserable about being there, and the foolishness of saying, "Oh, buck up, you wimps" was certainly no way to fix things. More ridiculous was the continued enforcement of the no short pants rule. That skirts were allowed just made things more complicated. Maybe some less tough love by teachers/administrators would be a wiser way to go on this bit.
Whatever happened to awnings ?
Also Iranians have a natural ac system in old architecture that uses air shafts
I grow in Taiwan, and the weather is super hot and humid from May to October. Our summer vacation won't start till July 1st. We didn't have air condition in public school (even now), but we all survive. (Even in some university/college classroom don't have air condition.) We survived just fine~~
For me, since I came here for my degree, I always think it is such wast of energy to air condition the entire building way too cold (a lot of people have to bring a jacket to class). And too hot in winter, so a lot of my classmates wear t-shirt during class.
I went to grade school in southern Virginia in the ‘80s and ‘90s and we didn’t have air conditioning. Students were allowed to wear shorts and though it was hot, we managed just fine. Moves were made to condition schools, but I don't recall it being an outrage that it was cruel to students. It was a matter of slowly updating infrastructure.
I grew up by a Marsh in Wisconsin. So imagine having to deal with heat, humidity and mosquitos.
private school in ohio in the 80's
we never had AC, single pane glass windows mostly fixed, and only 2 oscillating fans. I remember many hot days with the fans going and the school roof being replaced (hot tar being melted and pumped outside the only open window.)
We lived, but it might be worth noting that i remember the heat and waiting for the fan to blow my direction...not the subject we were studying.
cityfolk: the grass ain't any greener on LI!
contrary to what some may think, most long island schools are not air conditioned. making matters worse, for security reasons, the maintenance staffs close every window at the end the the school day--trapping the heat inside for the next day without deriving any benefit from any cooling that may take place in the evening.
making matters worse, many LI elementary schools are one-story affairs with hot tar roofs and surrounded by blacktop which traps heat and radiates it for days!
let's include the schoolchildren in the conversation -- sometimes kids know what's best for themselves. and when rules are constantly imposed on them, i imagine they feel a bit like caged animals. i know i did.
A lot of the older walk-up apartment houses have wiring that dates from the time when Thomas Edison was alive-- with insulation that is degraded and crumbling. To blithely suggest upgrading the wiring says nothing of the cost of busting open walls-- which the rent stabilized person does NOT want to pay.
An air conditioner on those old wires is a 50/50 chance of a fire in the walls.
I grew up in the Bronx, and still live here without AC. I don't see a need for AC.
Summer, feels like summer! It is hot, the windows are open, the ceiling fans are on, and it is lovely. Drink water and ice tea, don't move too fast.
We sit in the back yard during the afternoons, the front stoop in the morning as the sun changes. Our basement tends to be cooler than the rest of the house during the hottest hours.
I really look forward to summer; and I think that AC is a luxurious waste of energy..
Hi Brian,
It was surprising that during this segment of your show, never mentioned was the beginning of economic development of such 'towns' as Houston, Phoenix, Dallas, Albuquerque (to name just a few) with the advent of air-conditioning in the early '50's. These towns literally mushroomed in to cities and mega-cities once air-conditioning became prevalent in office buildings, plants, schools and homes. Afternoon siestas became phenomena of the past. It was an important part of the growth of this country, down south for sure, but also in all parts of the US.
As a NYC teacher I am embarassed by this. It is such a non-issue. With all of the other problems in education this issue just makes Teachers once again look like a bunch a whiners.
It's bad enough to not have air conditioning on these very hot days but our school, Brooklyn Tech HS has had the heat on two mornings this week because it has been said that in order for the cafeteria to have hot water for cleaning, etc., the heat must be turned on!!!
Born 1955, grew up in Clifton but lived in Providence RI, Boston, Nashville TN, Washington DC.
- Did not live, school or work in AC environment until I was 24. While living in Boston, Cambridge for 4 years remenbered that NOBODY had AC at home. We nt to the park, movies, roller rink when things got just toooohot.
- Wife and I had to buy AC when we moved to Nashville. It would have been unbearable without it. After living in very "ACish" Nashville and returing to "non-ACish" Boston after 12 months had the general perception that Boston was somehow hotter. Your body does adjust.
- In New England / NY / NJ it's really the humidity that kills you and open windows don't help much with that.
- Nobody mentioned awnings. Look at photos of summer season old NYC (the White House even) and you will see awnings over all windows to reduce heat gain through windows.
- Slender NYC sktscrapers like RCA Building were designed according to real estate "rules" that stipulated maximum distances from operable windows for passive light, cooling, air. I'm sure they were still very hot on summer days. Me who worked there, like my father, probably still had to wear wool suits and ties.
With "Peak Oil" on the horizon new low energy strategies for tolerating and being productive the heat will be required. Perhaps Americans willl abandon the "Sun Belt" for a new "Chill Belt"
I'm a teacher in a public school in Manhattan. Some people have excellent suggestions for keeping space cooler during the hot weather. But I cannot keep the windows to my classroom open at night; the rules say they must be shut. During the day, I have the option of keeping the shades open in order to try to let some breeze come, which also lets in the blazing afternoon sun, OR I can pull the shades all the way down and let no air in. Furthermore, even though it's breezy and pleasant outside, the building next door blocks a lot of the air so we get little air movement even when the windows are open. Anyone who thinks students can concentrate in this environment on 90-degree days simply hasn't experienced a classroom with 30 warm bodies.
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