Interesting info about early life of Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain) in New York City, Flatbush Avenue and drivers who drive for-hire vehicles in public transportation in NYC are exempted from seat belts.
F. Y. I.
Q. I was surfing the Web when I came across an account supposedly written by Samuel L. Clemens (the young Mark Twain) about his visit to the first New York World's Fair as a teenager. Was this a hoax?
A. No, it was true. Even though Twain's own writings put him at the wheel of a Mississippi riverboat as a teenager, his biographer Albert Bigelow Paine pointed out that Twain, who sometimes fudged details of his past, didn't begin piloting riverboats until his early 20's, after he had returned from a trip east.
That trip took him to New York and Philadelphia in 1853-54. According to Paine, the 17-year-old Sam Clemens left his mother in Hannibal, Mo., and took various jobs as a journeyman printer. In Manhattan, he found work on Cliff Street at the printing house of John A. Gray & Green; he lodged at a mechanics' boarding house on Duane Street.
In one of his earliest surviving letters, Clemens wrote to his sister Pamela in St. Louis about the wonders of New York's World's Fair and its Crystal Palace, erected where Bryant Park is today.
"From the gallery (second floor) you have a glorious sight — the flags of the different countries represented, the lofty dome, glittering jewelry, gaudy tapestry, etc., with the busy crowd passing to and fro — 'tis a perfect fairy palace — beautiful beyond description," Clemens wrote.
He marveled at the Latting Observatory, a tower on the fairgrounds; and the Croton Aqueduct: "If necessary, they could easily supply every family in New York with one hundred barrels of water a day!"
Twain's letter concluded: "You ask where I spend my evenings. Where would you suppose, with a free printer's library containing more than 4,000 volumes within a quarter of a mile of me, and nobody at home to talk to? Write soon."
Flatbush Avenue, Continued
Q. I know that Flatbush Avenue is one of the oldest roads in Brooklyn, so I've always been confused as to why once you pass Fulton Street going north to the Manhattan Bridge, the road becomes Flatbush Avenue Extension.
A. The Flatbush Avenue extension was built 100 years ago through the 1850's-era Vinegar Hill neighborhood to connect Flatbush Avenue with the anticipated Manhattan Bridge, which opened in 1909. Concord Street and Barbarin Street are two of the streets that disappeared or were truncated. The bridge's opening was credited with reducing traffic congestion on the Brooklyn Bridge by 25 percent the next year.
Freed From Clicking It
Q. In four-plus decades of riding in a taxi, I have noticed only three drivers wearing seat belts. Are they exempt, and if so, why?
A. "Although we encourage drivers and passengers alike to wear seat belts in a taxicab for any length of ride, they are specifically exempted from the usual requirement by the state Vehicle and Traffic Law," said Allan J. Fromberg, a spokesman for the Taxi and Limousine Commission. The exemption from the seat belt law applies to all for-hire vehicles in public transportation, he said, including livery cabs, limousines and buses, as well as yellow cabs.
David Pollack, a part-time cabdriver who is editor of The Taxi Insider newsletter, pointed out that if taxi drivers had to buckle and unbuckle seat belts dozens of times a day — getting out of the cab to help with luggage, and turning around to take bills and give change — it would not only be a burden on drivers but would add to traffic congestion.
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