Odes to Adair Park · Track 4 · middle
The 1890s Streetcar Down Lee Street
The streetcar era — the Lee Street line that gave Adair Park its existence, the morning commute downtown by streetcar at 6 a.m., the small storefronts that sprung up along the line, the rhythm of a streetcar suburb. The infrastructure as the neighborhood's spine. Repton tells the streetcar story.
Lyrics
The overhead wire hums a new note. Electric, after 1889. George Washington Adair drew the map. But the spine was this steel line. Before the first porch light goes out, the first car waits. Six a.m. sharp. A promise made to the men buying lots. A quick ride downtown for their work. The Sanborn maps of 1892 show the tracks laid clean between the empty squares where the houses would soon be. Hear it? The clatter down Lee Street. The spark and the whine of the motor. A brass bell rung by a foot pedal. This is the rhythm that brought them over the ridge. This is the sound of the plat becoming a place. Wooden benches, slick with morning dew. Coal smoke from the Mechanicville yards mixing with the clean electric air. Faces in the window glass, anonymous. The Pullman porters and the clerks from the bungalows. All watching their neighborhood take shape, frame by frame, from a rumbling car. Hear it? The clatter down Lee Street. The spark and the whine of the motor. A brass bell rung by a foot pedal. This is the rhythm that brought them over the ridge. This is the sound of the plat becoming a place. And where the streetcar stopped, a storefront grew. A grocery, a pharmacy, a life outside the home. The city ordinance of 1891 approved the route. But the company payrolls kept no record of the first motormen. The hands that held the brake. The foot that knew the bell. Their names are gone from the record. The rhythm remains. The sound fades toward West End. Another run begins. The clatter, the bell. The clatter. The bell.