Sunday, September 03, 2006

Can You Surrey, Can You Picnic?

The Sunday Times' City Section has an article about the efforts to save the Van Tassell and Kearney Sales Ring Stable on 13th Street and 3rd Avenue.This was the perfect opportunity for the manic depressive to collect some old horse and carriage pics and combine them with the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic, "Surrey With The Fringe on Top." The picture attached
comes from the a-dbuggy.com site. Here's the text:The private omnibus, built on the lines of the public version, was first developed about 1870. It had a covered passenger section, with seats along the two sides and a door with a step at the rear. Some that were made for country use had a forward facing seat mounted on the roof behind the driver’s seat. Lighter versions without the roof seat were made for use in the city, and these were sometimes called “opera buses” in America. The extension of the roof over the driver’s seat is similar to that on a rockaway, hence the name. The omnibus was owned by Mr. E.B. Smith of Philadelphia. It was known to his family as “the church wagon.”
Builder:
Van Tassel & Kearney were not carriage builders; they were auctioneers and dealers in carriages and harness. At one time they held the New York agency for the important carriage building firm of Henry Hooker & Co., of New Haven. This omnibus is very similar to a carriage shown in the Hooker catalogue of about 1898 and named the “Stamford wagonette.”
Here's the Surrey lyrics:
When I take you out tonight with me Honey, here's the way it's gonna be
You will set behind a team of snow-white horses In the slickest gig you'll ever see.
Chicks and ducks and geese better scurry When I take you out in the surrey
When I take you out in the surrey with the fringe on top Watch that fringe an' see how it flutters
When I drive them high-steppin' strutters Nosy pokes will peak through their shutters and their eyes will pop!
The wheels are yellow, the upholstery's brown The dashboard's genuine leather.
With eisenglass curtains you can roll right down In case there's a change in the weather
Two bright side-lights winkin' and blinkin' Ain't no finer rig I'm a thinkin'
You can keep yer rig if yer thinkin' that I'd keer to swap Fer that shiny little surry with the fringe on the top
Would you say the fringe was made of silk? Wouldn't have no other kind but silk
Has it really got a team of snow-white horses? One's like snow, the other's more like milk.
All the world'll fly in a flurry When I take you out in the surry
When I take you out in the surry with the fringe on top. When we hit that road, hell-for-leather
Cats and dogs will dance in the heather Birds and frogs'll sing all together and the toads will hop!
The wind'll whistle as we rattle along, The cows'll moo in the clover
The river will ripple out a whispered song, And whisper it over and over
Don't you wish you'd go on forever Don't you wish you'd go on forever Don't you wish you'd go on forever
And you'd never stop? In that shiny little surry With the fringe on top

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