100 years ago in The Saratogian
Friday, March 14, 1919. “Saratoga has got to decide, and largely under the direction of the Chamber of Commerce, whether it is to be a little village or whether it is to enter the race to see if it shall attract its share of people as a summer resort,” former state senator Edgar T. Brackett tells the Saratoga Chamber of Commerce tonight. Whether or not the city adopts an ambitious lighting plan for Congress Park and Broadway may decide the issue.
The Chamber board of directors and members of the city council come out in favor of a lighting system submitted by General Electric as a model for similar-sized cities across the country. Property owners on Broadway are expected to help foot the bill for the project.
GE illuminating laboratory director W. D’A. Ryan explains that similar costsharing arrangements were made for the installation of street lights in San Francisco and Los Angeles. The exact cost in Saratoga Springs remains to be determined, says Adirondack Electric Power company superintendent Patrick F. Roohan.
Along with improving lighting in the park, the project will extend electric lights along Broadway from Circular Street to Rock Street. Lighting Broadway is acting mayor John A. T. Schwarte’s top priority, but since the current lighting system in the park is “useless,” both projects should be undertaken together.
Brackett warns Saratogians not to pinch pennies on this project. “If we put our shoulders to the wheel and push, then we ought to become a modern community,” he says, “Maybe it’s a crazy idea, but I am just wild and crazy enough to always be in favor of spending money on a chance.
“I don’t think the community will criticize any plan for modern improvements. But what the community demands is to have a wise spending of every dollar. Our taxpayers don’t want cripples working on the streets. They don’t want a local foundry to make more than a proper profit for the best there is.
“We have got to get ourselves out of the narrow rut. We must not skin and skrimp every dollar, or else we’ve got to get out of the race and let the others canter ahead.
“If we decided not to go into these modern methods then we must go back to being a little village again.”
Ryan’s presentation and Brackett’s forceful arguments prove persuasive. “I’ve changed my mind since I came to this meeting,” says Dr. Douglass C. Moriarta, “I think we ought to decide we’re going to have these lights … I think we ought to decide to do it, and to do it now.”