SOCIETY OUT IN FORCE.

The New York Times
May 6, 1900

Automobiles Were the Fashionable Means of Conveyance.

Despite the cool, unreasonable weather the attendance of society people at the races was large and more representative than for many years past.  There was a procession of carriages, traps of all kinds, coaches, hacks, and automobiles all the late morning hours along upper Fifth and Jerome Avenues and the Fordham road to the park.  The automobilists were out in force, and scores of locomobiles, gasoline and electric carriages and cabs made the journey to and from the Park and the city, carrying well-known people.  When these reached the Park they proceeded to the clubhouse, and were grouped in the rear of the house.  There the electric vehicles were recharged at a station in the clubhouse, for the trip to the Park means the overcoming of several heavy grades and some hills, with the consequent use of much power.

Numbers of devotees of the new sport surrounded this group of automobiles at all times, studying the various styles and makes, and discussing their several claimed merits or faults.  There were surreys, victorias, hansoms, buggies, and even one six-seated automobile.  The number of breakdowns among the automobiles was very few, and some of them made remarkably good time.  Mr. Jefferson Seligman in a Winton victoria, weighing 3,800 pounds, made the run from Fifth Avenue and Fifty-ninth Street to the park in fifty-five minutes, and the return run in fifty minutes.

non-automotive content omitted.