When heat waves cut down city residents

New York is no stranger to brutal heat waves. But thanks to air conditioning, newspapers no longer have to print a daily list of “heat prostrations,” which included dozens of citizens overcome by hot weather.

A check of The New York Times archive drew story after story on a specific heat spell, plus a list of people felled by heatstroke.

[“On the Docks After a Hot Day,” an 1868 illustration from the NYPL]

An article about an 89-degree day in June 1899 listed these casualties: 

“Isaac Shapiro, fifty-eight years old, of 292 Division Street, was overcome in front of his home. He was removed to Gouverneur Hospital.

“James O’Mara, twenty years old, living in a lodging house at Broome Street and the Bowery, was driving a truck at 117 Spring Street when he was overcome by the heat. He was removed to St. Vincent’s Hospital.

“An unknown woman, poorly dressed and about sixty years old, was found unconscious last night at Locust Avenue and  133rd Street by Policeman McGrath of the East 138th Street Station. The woman seemed to have been overcome by heat. She was taken to Harlem Hospital.”

Tags: 1860s sketches of New York, Gouverneur Hospital, Heat prostration victims, Heat waves of New York, hottest day in New York City, How New Yorkers handled hot weather, New York in the 1890s