A sight you rarely see in New York. Coal delivery.

Coal was the main source of fuel for boilers even until the late 1900’s. My school was heated by a coal fired boiler (pity the guy who had to stoke the fire!). Con Ed plants were by the rivers and waterways to enable barges with coal to come up to a loading dock where it could be unloaded into the power plant. Even apartments (tenements and luxury rentals) had coal chute doors on the street so coal trucks could come by and send a load of coal down a chute to the building’s coal bunker. You can still see the little doors to the chutes on these apartments as you walk the streets of New York. The above then is a rare sight but the ovens they heat make some really great pizza here in New York!