Move On - 1903

Special Thanks to TigerRocket Photographed October 22, 1903. Thomas A. Edison, Inc. Camera: Alfred C. Abadie Lower East Side food cart street vendors are told to move along by the law. The elevated train nearby places this scene somewhere in or near the Bowery and Second Avenue. Text from a contemporary Edison film company catalog: MOVE ON. In certain sections of New York City large numbers of Jewish and Italian push-cart vendors congregate so closely along the sidewalks that they interfere with traffic. Policemen keep them moving. The picture shows how the frightened peddlers hurry away when a bluecoat appears. Some of the carts are piled high with fruits of all kinds, and it is interesting and amusing to see the expressions of combined fear and anxiety on the faces of the men as they hurry away; the fear of being arrested if they stand, and of losing some of their wares if the carts strike an obstruction in the street. The United States in 1903: January 2nd President Theodore Roosevelt shuts down post office in Indianola Miss., for refusing to accept its appointed postmistress because she was black / Jan. 9th Two New Yorkers buy the Baltimore baseball franchise for $18,000 and moved it to NY / Aug. 1st, first coast-to-coast automobile trip (SF-NY) completed / Aug. 17th, Joseph Pulitzer donates $1 million to Columbia University and begins Pulitzer Prizes / Dec. 1st, "The Great Train Robbery," the first Western film is released / Dec. 13th, New Jersey resident Italo Marcioni patents the ice cream cone Recommended reading: New York City Cartmen, 1667-1850 - Graham Russell Hodges Recollections of An Old Cartman - Isaac S. Lyon (1872)