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World's First Forgotten Electric Wonder - Chariot Race Of 1910 (Patreon)

Published:
2020-11-05 20:48:00
Imported:
2021-10

Content

Lots of hours in this one and I hope you enjoy it!  Here is the forgotten tale of a long lost amazement, the Rice Electric Display Company's Fiery Roman Chariot Race animated display that debuted the night of June 18, 1910 on top of the Normandie Hotel in Herald Square on 38th Street in New York City.  The first programmable alphanumeric displays are among the firsts that this massive undertaking gave to the world.  Enjoy!

https://youtu.be/u0KZXsZWP0E

Files

World's First Forgotten Electric Wonder - Chariot Race Of 1910

Lots of hours in this one and I hope you enjoy it! Here is the forgotten tale of a long lost amazement, the Rice Electric Display Company's Fiery Roman Chariot Race animated display that debuted the night of June 18, 1910 on top of the Normandie Hotel in Herald Square on 38th Street in New York City. The first programmable alphanumeric displays are among the firsts that this massive undertaking gave to the world. Enjoy! Join Team FranLab!!!! Become a patron and help support my YouTube Channel on Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/frantone #bulb #neon #lost - Music by Fran Blanche - Frantone on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/frantone/ Fran on Twitter - https://twitter.com/contourcorsets Fran's Science Blog - http://www.frantone.com/designwritings/design_writings.html FranArt Website - http://www.contourcorsets.com

Comments

Anonymous

Terrific!

Anonymous

Incredible and unimaginable for 1910. It's like a ship sail up there, so no wonder it didn't last. Ha! 600bhp generators above a hotel to help you get off to sleep

Jason Thorpe

Amazing. Thanks for this, Fran!

Anonymous

Delightful, and Thank You. I am suprised it stayed up at all. The designers of the building had no reason to build for the added load that the steel structure and the generators presented. What powered the generators? What sort of politicking was needed to get city approvals to permit construction? A wonder indeed.

Anonymous

Oh man, the back of that display looks more like a radiotelescope :)

Anonymous

Absolutely fascinating!

Anonymous

Very impressive effort, Fran, thanks for the history lesson.

Anonymous

Hi Fran. I really enjoyed that. It would be great if some of your follower's or general audience had more info. What a great topic to start a 'Citizen's science history page' with their contributions. Were they using banks of relays or oil filled capacitors with selenium rectifiers? fantastic tech. thank you.

David Peaker

A great video on a subject I knew nothing about! Thank you, Fran.

Anonymous

I never would have imagined this possible back then. The maintenance of changing bad incandescent bulbs when they were a relatively new technology completely mystifies me. How could such an electro-mechanical wonder have worked fro two years? This just seems beyond the cutting edge that it could have worked so well back then. I hope a patron has a long-forgotten folder on how this sign worked. Thanks for putting in the time. Really awesome video with so few sources available.

Anonymous

Fascinating. 500,000 ft of wire is almost 90 miles! Truly a wonder that it was ever approved, built, and worked as well as it did for as long as it did.

Anonymous

They say that the lamps flashed 2500 times per minute! What kind of lamp at that time can run at that speed? https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2011/04/24/the-chariot-race-sign-in-a-young-herald-square/

Anonymous

Very impressive. Never heard about that before. Do you have any more on how they were storing the text that appeared on the sign and converting it into the pattern of bulbs?

Mike Hughes

That was really interesting, I had not heard of it before. One has to wonder what technology they did employ in its construction so early on into the commencement of the electrical era. Did they have neon tube technology? will we ever find out? Hopefully someone will be able to answer this, given the reach of the internet. Fantastic article Fran. Thank you for researching and bringing this to our attention.

Mike Hughes
>>47189124

as they probably are to this day- not mentioning any names recently in the media.... circus!! hehehe!

Circuitmike
>>47189968

I was thinking shortwave broadcast antenna, like a curtain array.

Circuitmike
>>47200236

I'm not sure about the state of incandescent bulbs at that precise time, but if you've never heard of it, check out the Phoebus cartel to learn the story of how light bulb manufacturers colluded to engineer bulbs that failed more quickly so everyone could make more money. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel

lohphat

Here’s footage of the sign from 1911 or so. Look at the 4:40 mark. https://youtu.be/hZ1OgQL9_Cw