Next, one of the most sought after products of the 19th century... still sold today, even though demand has all but melted away.
Find out what was once stored in this warehouse and how it transformed everyday life.
- Let's go take a look.
- I want to go inside and take a look, yeah.
Also, a trip to the World of Tomorrow.
What happened at the 1939 New York World's Fair thats now considered a decisive moment in America's past?
- I hereby dedicate the New York World's Fair.
Drive By History starts now.
[Music] Made possible by: by the New Jersey Historic Trust, advancing historic preservation in New Jersey for the benefit of future generations.
Also, the New Jersey Historical Commission, enriching the lives of the public by preserving the historical record and advancing interest in and awareness of New Jersey's past.
Every day, thousands of motorists pass by countless history markers and say to themselves, ‘One of these days Im gonna stop and read that.
One of these days Im gonna find out what happened, and why it mattered.
Well, this is that day.
I'm headed to a history marker that deals with a very cold part of our past.
In fact, it's giving me chills just thinking about it.
I'm Ken Magos, and this is Drive By History.
[Music] Today's investigation takes me to Carmel, New York, located in the lower Hudson Valley.
In the 19th Century, the beauty of this area sparked a movement in art known as the Hudson River School.
You often see bodies of water in these kinds of paintings, almost always depicted as quietly flowing as they so often were in the warmer months.
But it's the colder months that were focused on today, back when water in this part of the world froze over.
Here's the sign that I was looking for.
As you can see, its in the middle of this busy commercial center.
Let's take a look at what it says.
‘Knickerbocker Ice Warehouse stored the ice cut on Lake Mahopac; floated in by canal then loaded on railroad cars, and sold in New York City from 1880 until refrigeration began in 1920.
So according to this sign, there was a time when ice was a hot commodity.
I'm off to find out more.
Ice isn't just older than the hills.
It made the hills.
Why did it become big business somewhat suddenly in the 19th century?
There must have been a new appreciation for ice.
But what happened?
To find out more, I'm off to the Guggenheim Library housed in this mansion, the former summer estate of Murry and Leonie Guggenheim located on the campus of Monmouth University, where Drive By History's Anthony Bernard has been hard at work on what can only be described as one really cool history.
- Anthony, I just came from a - history marker that talks about Knickerbocker Ice.
- Now you know Im always looking for local histories that - fit into the national narrative.
- And I thought, whats more universal than ice?
- The ice trade was big business everywhere.
- Knickerbocker Ice employed 3000 people at its peak.
- Wow.
OK, so where shall we begin then?
- How about at the beginning?
- The Ice Age?
[laughter] - Not that beginning.
In 1806 a named Frederick Tudor - gets into the ice business.
- Now, Frederick Tudors company was based out of Boston.
- It's cold in the winter there--lots of ice-- - and he believed he could convince average people - to pay money for it.
- And before that, people wouldn't pay for it?
- The general public...no.
The rich would.
- They prized cold drinks and ice cream, - particularly in the summer.
- But they were luxuries.
- That's interesting, since ice is accessible - to absolutely everyone.
- I wouldn't think that.
- The general public just didnt see the value in ice.
- Until the 19th century most people looked at ice - as just an unpleasant part of winter, - so the less to do with it, the better.
- So the perception had to be changed - and it had to be changed significantly.
- How did Tudor do it?
- He was very clever.
- He created demand and he did it in lots of ways.
- Here's an example -- he would send saloons - their first shipment of ice for free just to try it out.
- Or this -- his company taught people how to make ice cream.
- That created demand for ice - from cafes and confectionaries and later ice cream parlors.
- And in the mid-19th century, - ice cream has become enormously popular, - especially in the cities as a way to beat the heat.
- Of course, you need ice.
- Exactly.
- Plus, the migration from farms to cities also created demand - because cities, as you said in the summer, are very hot.
- Also, Tudor was able to drive down prices, - in part by developing new ways to harvest and ship ice.
- Here's an example.
- His company advanced - a method of harvesting ice using horse drawn saws.
- So he's creating efficiency and increasing supply.
- So you've got Tudor up in Boston, - increasing both supply and demand.
- And you've got folks like Knickerbocker in New York - who see an opportunity and want to get in on the act.
- You got it.
- Now, success doesn't come overnight.
- In fact, a number of Tudors ventures - belly flopped completely.
- However, within the span of 100 years, - ice went from being very undesirable - to so highly coveted that this happens.
- Take a look.
- In July 1906, there was an ice riot in New York City.
- An ice riot?
- Now that's not something you hear about every day.
- There's just one thing that I don't understand, though.
- If ice is being used as a respite - from the hot weather, - then this ice would have been harvested in the winter.
- Wouldnt it have melted by the summer?
- You'd think that when the weather's warm, the ice melts, - and that's where the next leg of this investigation begins.
[Music] To find out more, Anthony sends me to Garrison, New York to the Ice House.
Now a contemporary art gallery, when the structure was built, as the name suggests, it was used to store ice.
I met by SUNY Farmingdale Professor Bryan Field, a physicist with a keen interest in history.
He explains how in the 19th century ice could be harvested in the winter, stored above ground and remain in solid chunks until summer.
- Modern people would think, well, this ice is just going to - melt, it's just all going to flow back into the... - into the lake here.
- Thats what I would expect.
- But it doesn't.
[Music] Long before the Industrial Revolution, frozen water was kept frozen by harnessing a physical property it possesses.
It's something you probably experienced but never really thought about.
- Ice is actually very hard to melt.
- And you're probably familiar with this - whenever it snows, - and there's always a little bit left under the trees - or inbetween the windshield wipers of your car, - and it just won't go away.
That's because ice does not immediately turn to water at 32 degrees Fahrenheit.
Rather, it sits at that temperature for a while with a great deal of energy needed for it to be transformed from a solid to a liquid.
Also, air is a relatively good insulator.
It keeps ice cold.
And if packed tightly, only the surface of an ice block encounters sunlight.
That, too, helps it remain solid.
In bygone eras, people knew all of this and would put this knowledge to work as they cut and stored ice in places such as this ice house.
- The trick is you want to fill this thing from top to bottom - and from left to right.
- You want it absolutely absolutely packed with ice.
Well into the 20th century, ice houses dotted the landscape, both large commercial structures and smaller private ones.
- Let's go take a look.
- I want to go inside and take a look, yeah.
As we step inside, it's clear this ice house has a new purpose.
It's home to the JDJ Contemporary Art Program making it a fantastic example of a historic site preserved in a sustainable way.
Although the use of the inside space has evolved significantly the integrity of the interior has been kept intact, preserving important characteristics from the time when the Ice House was used to store ice.
- OK, so inside here, what surprises me first is - how tall it is.
- Yes, that's actually a primary feature of an ice house -- - is it should have very high ceilings.
- With a skylight?
- Well, yes, essentially because what happens is heat rises - and it will be trapped in that little attic area - and then it will be blown out through that opening in the top.
- And, of course, the heat is going to rise more - when this place is full of ice - because any little heat thats left is going to end up up there - and as it blows out it's going to perfectly insulate - this lower area.
- That's interesting, and that keeps this area from melting.
- Yes.
Of course, it's hard not to notice the view.
The ice house sits right on the water.
That, too, was an important aspect of the structure.
- Back in the day, this would have been open to the elements, - and then they would take - little floating chunks of ice from the lake - and try to scoop them into this inlet - and then raise them and set them in here - to be stacked up nicely for later use.
- How big of a block are we talking about?
- Well, given the size of the inlet in the windows, - probably about the size of a pizza box would be ideal.
- That size of block seems much smaller than what I would expect - I think when we see in the movies, - we see in old TV shows, - seems like these big square blocks.
- Yeah, and they're also very clear, and very hygienic.
- So it's not at all what... - Its not like that at all.
When ice was harvested from ponds or lakes, some of it would have contained leaves or sticks or even trash that had been floating in the water when it first froze.
It would have been nearly impossible to remove those kinds of contaminants without the ice melting.
As I'd soon find out, later advances in the industry were in part sparked by concerns about hygiene, particularly when ice made its way into everyday life.
And, as we step outside, Bryan tells me, although people loved ice cream and cold drinks, few inventions brought ice into the home quite like the ice box.
- Well, as people started to move into cities, - they needed a way to keep their food fresh.
- With an ice box, - you could store food for a long period of time.
An ice box, which was called a refrigerator in the 19th century, was a non-mechanical device that held a block of ice in a top compartment.
Cold air circulated lower, preserving the boxs contents... typically meat and dairy.
The appeal of ice boxes steadily grew.
In the early 20th century, they were in 80% of New York City homes.
- That made the ice more valuable then, too.
- Absolutely, and a higher demand which created more money for the ice...for the ice barons.
- So the industry grows.
- Yes.
Ice had medical applications, too.
Doctors began to use it to reduce swelling and lower fevers.
In fact, the first ice cube tray might have been invented by a doctor.
A pivotal development took place in 1881, when an abundance of ice was brought to the White House to aid President James Garfield, who lay dying from a gunshot wound.
- The Army Corps of Engineers brought in electric fans - and went through hundreds of pounds of ice a day, - blowing cool air to make the President more comfortable.
Although Garfield did not survive, the effort to artificially cool his bedroom reflects our nation's shifting view of ice and the cold.
- Was there a sense before that that hot was good, cold was bad?
- I think that's a perfectly fair thing to say.
- And there was also a very popular sermon - topic of the time is that heat was a gift from God, - and that cold was something that you had to be afraid of.
- So people really resisted ice for a long time.
[Music] 19th century industrial titans and the companies they ran led our nation's evolving view of ice.
They could foresee the added benefits and the added profits in harnessing temperature.
Railroads embraced ice, creating refrigerated freight cars.
The beer industry did too, particularly in its production of lager, which needs to be made cold.
Oil and iron manufacturers also started to use ice.
But of all the industrial uses that came about at this time, nothing quite compares to the benefits experienced by the Sackett and Wilhelms Lithographing and Printing Company in 1903, located on Grand Street and Morgan Avenue in Brooklyn.
- It was very hot, it was very humid inside their factory.
- And when the paper went through to get each layer of color print on it, the paper would change size - because of the humidity, and it would make the print - come out blurred in the summertime.
- Your offset printing was truly offset.
- Exactly.
Sackett and Wilhelms, however, took a newer approach to solving their problem.
Rather than ice, they were interested in mechanical cooling, and the person they turned to for help was someone you might call an iceman for a new generation.
His name: Willis Carrier.
- So Willis Carrier was a serious engineer.
- He was trained at Cornell.
Willis carrier built an apparatus that cooled the interior space very effectively.
And although other machines existed that did something similar, Carriers machine did it a little better.
- He discovered that there was a fixed relationship - between temperature, humidity and dewpoint, - something that people didn't know at the time.
- And this allowed him to build a machine - that not only converted electricity into cold - without any ice, - but it could also exactly control the humidity - of the room that it was in.
- And that was actually - the big breakthrough that Carrier brought to the table.
Effectively, Willis Carrier had built the first modern air conditioner, and it came about because the nation's view of the cold had changed sharply from negative to positive.
That was due to the ice trade.
I had thought this would be the natural end to the investigation, but it isn't.
Instead, it's the beginning of a related history, the tip of the iceberg, so to speak.
I think you'll find what follows fascinating.
- So then how does Carrier go - about getting this new technology to catch on?
- Well, some things were easy -- industrial uses of air - conditioning caught on right away.
Willis carrier, however, believed air conditioning had a place not just in factories but in everyday life.
- But...how to convince the American public of that.
It took two decades, but ultimately Carrier found the opportunity he was looking for: The American cinema.
[Music] - The average person, they would have first sort of experienced - air conditioning at the movie theaters.
- Wait, at movies?
- Yes, at the movies.
In the 1920s, movies had become big business.
People loved going to the pictures.
Sales, however, slumped during the summer.
Who wants to sit in a hot, sticky theater with little more than a paper fan?
Willis carrier knew he could solve the film industrys problem, and in turn, they could solve his.
- So there was a theater in New York City - that decided that it was going - to invest in an air conditioner - that cost it about a million dollars in today's money.
- The equivalent.
- That's a lot of money, though.
A handful of theaters elsewhere had already installed Willis Carriers contraption.
But none were as high profile as this one.
The 2000 seat Rivoli Theater, located a few blocks from Times Square.
Carrier was aware New Yorks reaction could make him...or break him.
Memorial Day Weekend 1925.
That was the date selected for this debut.
Well before the doors opened, people had lined up at the box office, intrigued by the advertised promise of cool comfort.
At this performance, the drama would play out not on the big screen, but in the auditorium.
At curtain time, the house was packed, the air thick with suspense.
Final adjustments had caused a delay.
Carrier's machine had not yet been turned on and the show had sold out.
Given the enormous crowd inside, temperatures didn't fall, they rose, with patrons and Carrier squirming in their seats.
Was this premiere going to be a disaster?
As the movie's plot began to hum along, the air conditioning began to hum, too.
By the final frame, Carriers air conditioning had garnered glowing reviews.
In the weeks that followed, Patrons swarmed the Rivoli, eager for a similar experience.
- They recoup their money in three months.
Of course, others also got in on the act.
By 1930, Willis Carrier had installed his climate control technology in 300 theaters.
Not only would America become hooked on air conditioning, but people would also flock to the movies to escape the heat.
And the summer blockbuster was born, too.
Centrifugal chillers, as Willis Carrier called them, continued to permeate American life.
Department stores embraced them.
Many restaurants did as well.
Getting the public to install air conditioning in their homes however was still the holy grail.
- Well, carrier wanted to push into the consumer market.
- He wanted to put air conditioners into homes.
- And although it would have, by 1939, still been a great - expense -- probably about the cost of buying another car -- - it was something that he thought people were ready for.
From offices in Newark, New Jersey, Willis carrier focused on something called room weather makers, advertised as half the size, half the price, and double the protection against weather discomfort.
As prices came down, competition heated up.
Carrier again needed to get his invention before the public, this time quickly ahead of rivals.
But how?
- He thought what better place to do than to show the world - as the 1939 World's Fair?
[Music] The World of Tomorrow, the fair's theme, couldn't have been more complementary.
And despite winds of war blowing in Europe, people were racing to the fairgrounds in Flushing Meadows, Corona Park, Queens.
Visitors included the most powerful people of the day.
England's King George the 6th and US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who opened the fair.
‘And I declare it open to all mankind.
[Sound of Cheering Crowd] - About one in three Americans over that two year period - went to go see the World's Fair in New York.
- In fact, even my grandparents went there on their honeymoon.
The opportunity was enormous and Willis Carrier created a pavilion of equal scale remembered to this day as the Carrier Igloo.
The foundations had been laid.
By the end of the Fair, home air conditioning, though still highly aspirational, seemed achievable, too.
The onset of World War 2 would slow the adoption of this technology.
But the 1939 World's Fair is now viewed as a seminal moment in this specific history.
- Thats exactly right, and what we could kind of trace to - this 1939 exhibition is sort of a pivot point in history - where people start to move away from the ice trade - and start to move into electric air conditioning.
[Music] Over the following decades, air conditioning would permeate American life and change our history dramatically in a range of ways that you probably don't realize.
- So before there was air conditioning, - all buildings had to have windows that opened.
- And you also had to have access to windows - so you couldn't have an office in a building - that was too far away from a window.
- So this is what architects called ‘deep space, - space in the building that's far from a window.
This very functional requirement limited not only business, but also architecture.
- And that sort of dictates not only how big a building can be, - but how tall, - because high windows have problems with high winds.
- So buildings were constrained - to be of a certain size and a certain height - because they had to have windows that opened.
- And once you have air conditioners, that changes.
With those massive limitations now lifted, architects were able to make buildings much taller and with walls of glass.
Nothing needed to open.
- You start to see the birth of modern architecture.
- An example might be like the Lever House in New York City.
- So it changes the way we think of form and function.
- Absolutely.
In other words, the landscape of New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and every other modern American city took shape due to air conditioning.
But that's not the only surprising way air conditioning influenced history.
It changed the power dynamics of our nation.
- We start to see huge population growth in the south - and in the western southwestern states.
- So we see essentially a huge migration of people - to places like Florida, Southern California, Texas and - Arizona, which actually has the largest population growth.
In 1960, Arizona had four electoral votes.
Today it's eleven.
But we're not singling out one state.
Today, 40% of the nation lives in the American Sunbelt.
Air conditioning also led to space exploration.
‘The engines firing now building up to flight speed and liftoff.
According to NASA, when the International Space Station is facing the sun, temperatures reach 250 degrees Fahrenheit, or they would, if not for A/C.
Also, if you're watching this show on digital, you can thank air conditioning.
Those large servers that power the internet generate an enormous amount of heat.
Air conditioning has shaped history in so many ways, but I find nothing more impressive than this.
It made us wealthier.
- Economists had always said that people in colder - climates were more productive than people in warmer climates, - maybe up to twelve times more productive.
Companies that struggled in summer became thriving year-round enterprises.
Of course, that's true of the movie business, which we talked about earlier, but also the federal government.
Washington DC used to be nearly deserted in summer due to the heat.
The examples are countless.
- Because of that, people were able to drastically raise - their standard of living.
- They're able to make money year-round.
- They were able to find better paying jobs, - and that led to more income, - which led to more prosperity and so on and so forth.
Air conditioning created an economic climate.
I mean that literally: increasing the standard of living for all of us.
You probably don't think about the connection between ice and air conditioning, but without that development, life today would be quite a bit different.
As the day draws to a close, of course I'm reminded that along with the positive comes some negative.
Mechanical air conditioning has been linked to global warming.
Although a range of solutions are forthcoming, the one I find most intriguing is actually kind of backward looking.
- There's a number of office buildings in New York City - that are using ice as part of their air conditioning systems.
Specifically, cool air emanating from ice blocks is being piped through ventilation ducts.
And not just in New York.
There are at least 3000 ice cooling systems worldwide.
- Wow, everything old is new again.
- My thoughts exactly.
In some ways, our investigation is ending right where it began.
Although today's so-called thermal storage methodology is more sophisticated, the core concept harkens straight back to the 19th century, to the very start of our modern ice age, to a time when people would look at you twice if you'd said ice will one day change the way we live.
And cold drinks and ice cream were new to most people, and a fantastic novelty at that.
It took a little convincing, but Frederick Tudor and others like him knew once Americans experienced the benefits of ice, wed warm up to it very quickly.
See you next time.
[Music] Made possible by: the New Jersey Historic Trust, advancing historic preservation in New Jersey for the benefit of future generations.
Also, the New Jersey Historical Commission, enriching the lives of the public by preserving the historical record and advancing interest in and awareness of New Jersey's past.
I bet you drive by a history marker and say to yourself, I should tell Drive By History about that.
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