I gave up driving into New York City many years ago. Between the kamikaze bike riders and the gridlock, public transportation or "hoofing it" seems easier. But the problem is nothing new.

Somewhere around 1912, automobiles outnumbered horses and buggies in New York.

In 1913, The New York Times reported that from 1910 to 1912, the number of people killed by either wagon, streetcars or automobiles was 532 and 95% of the people killed were pedestrians. Death rates for wagons and streetcars had dramatically dropped over that time period ( down from 211 to 112 for wagons and from 148 to 134 for street cars) while the fatalities from automobiles nearly doubled from 112 to 221. The article, titled “Death Harvest” noted that 95% of the automobile victims were pedestrians.

Just imagine trying to cross Fifth Avenue today without traffic lights! In the early 20^th century, traffic policemen at each intersection waved opposing vehicles and pedestrians through as best they could. The result was cars and trucks unable to exceed walking speed. An estimated 2,000 vehicles an hour were traveling on Fifth Avenue past 42d Street, and it could take 40 minutes to drive from 57^th Street to 34^th.

An experimental traffic light in 1917 was short-lived, but NYC’s first permanent lights when up in 1920, a gift from Dr. John A. Harriss, a millionaire physician and then Commissioner of Traffic.  Five elevated signaling sheds in the middle of the roadway at 34th, 38th, 42d, 50th and 57th Streets. His design was a homely wooden shed on a latticework of steel, from which a police officer changed signals, allowing one to two minutes for each direction. These first signals used only green and white lights. So, for example, green meant Fifth Avenue traffic was to stop so crosstown traffic could proceed; white meant go. Most crosstown streets and Fifth Avenue were still two-way. With only five towers, the other intersections were manned by traffic police, who coordinated their hand signals by watching the towers.

Despite their clear (to us) flaws, these lights were deemed a success: the new lights were said to reduce the 57th Street to 34th trip to 15 minutes.

Prompted by this success, in 1922 the Fifth Avenue Association gave the city a new set of signals: seven ornate bronze towers placed at intersections along Fifth from 14th to 57th Streets, at a cost of $126,000. These 23-foot-high structures were 5- feet square, and were decorated with neoclassical ornaments, including four eagles at the corners. They sported illuminated clocks with bells that sounded the hours, and they rested on granite safety islands for pedestrians.

Interestingly, the towers were not placed in the center of the intersections, but several feet north or south of the crosswalks, meaning crosstown drivers could barely see them.

Soon, most of the big avenues got traffic lights, though much less elegant in design, and mounted on corners.

In 1926, the towers were placed under the control of a single officer when the Police Department found that centralized traffic lighting could free officers for other duties. By then traffic-light systems had been installed on Lafayette Street, the Grand Concourse in the Bronx, Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn and other streets.

Cars continued to flood the streets and within a few years, the police decided that Freedlander’s over-the-top traffic towers were blocking the roadway. In 1929, Joseph H. Freedlander — the designer of the five bronze towers — was called back to design a new, simplified two-light traffic signal, also bronze, to be placed on the corners. These were topped by statues of Mercury and lasted until 1964.

Fun Fact: A few of the Mercury statues have survived — one in the offices of the Fifth Avenue Association, and two at the Museum of the City of New York — but Freedlander’s 1922 towers have completely vanished, probably junked for their scrap value.