MONTVALE—Tired of getting into an ice cold car in the morning? So are we—but it could be worse! Next time you’re enduring the wait for the vents to start blowing that blessed warm air, consider this chilly ride from the early 1900s.
Our featured photograph was taken outside the Montvale train station in those days when the borough was home to about 400 people, and before there were any cars on our local roads. Back then, horse-drawn carriage passengers attempted to stave off the cold by layering their clothing, tucking themselves inside heavy lap blankets made of wool or fur, and bringing along foot warmers—metal boxes filled with hot coals. In heavy snow, horse-drawn sleighs would replace wagons on the Pascack Valley’s country lanes.
Though not legible in this photo, the poster to the right of the window reads, “For advertising here and on other stations, address Suburban Advertising Company, Flatiron Building, NYC.” In this way we know the photo dates to after 1902, which is when the iconic Flatiron Building was constructed.
The two other posters are for Dr. Pierce’s Golden Medical Discovery and Piso’s Cure—two dubious elixirs from the era of unregulated quack medicines. Dr. Pierce’s, a compound of vegetable extracts, was billed as a blood purifier that could cure anything from cancer to indigestion, and from weak lungs to eczema (a full 98 percent of ailments, as Dr. Ray Vaughn Pierce stated in a 1902 advertisement). Piso’s claimed to cure coughs, colds and consumption (tuberculosis). The concoction contained marijuana, alcohol, and chloroform and was recommended for people of all ages, including infants over a year old. The company’s posters adorned all of the train stations in the Pascack Valley in the early 1900s.