Culture
Is This the World's Oldest Dash Cam Video?
Incredible footage from the 1920s shows New York's traffic has always been a problem (especially when you're rushing to put out a fire).
The most battle-hardened taxi driver of today has got nothing on whoever's clutching the wheel of Chief John Kenlon's fire mobile during this madcap dash through 1920s New York.
The call for a warehouse blaze on East 123rd Street went out in the afternoon and in an instant firefighters were sliding down the pole to respond. Kenlon, who became the chief of New York's Fire Department in 1911 and later earned the title of "World's Most Famous Firefighter," had the presence of mind to record the journey by mounting a camera on the hood of his car. And a good thing he did, because otherwise we might not know how utterly abysmal the traffic was in the Roaring Twenties.