From the day
Perspective: The Future Historian · Sound
The percussive march of Abe Holzmann’s "Blaze Away" blares from a distant phonograph, competing with the rhythmic clatter of hooves and the first sputtering groans of motor carriages. I watch a driver grumble while handing over $0.10 for a gallon of fuel, a bally high price for a liquid that smells of the coming century’s greased ambitions. Up on Washington Heights, the sound of progress is the scratching of Vanderbilt’s pen securing the soil beneath our feet. This cacophony of steam and speculative finance is the precise frequency where the Gilded Age finally fractures into the modern era.