They weren’t buying a lot as at that point they were really just playthings for the rich (it really took Henry Ford and the 1908 Model T before regular folks saw them as practical and more importantly affordable transportation). But I thought I’d at least see one vehicle on the streets of Paris.

I was surprised when I saw the galloping horses, until I realized they were fire horses. Cities in Europe and the U.S. had speed limits which is why all the other carriage and cart horses are moving at no faster than a trot.

President Ulysses S. Grant once got a speeding ticket for galloping his horse through the streets of Washington D.C. Actually, he got more than one ticket for that when he was President. Naturally being a former Army officer he was a good horseman, and he loved to go fast whether riding or driving his coach. When the police officer chased him down and grabbed Grant’s carriage horse’s bridle it took half a block to bring the coach to a stop. The police officer was embarrassed to find that he had just pulled over the President and offered to forget the whole thing but Grant insisted on the ticket.

Wide open streets, quite clean; moving sidewalks; no-hands bike riding (look ma!); parts where folks did look and parts where folks didn’t look at the camera; horse-drawn fire brigade, perhaps with a steam powered water jet?.

Lovely kids sailing ships, and great ships. Different groups of horse drawn carriages, a few singles, a few fully loaded with well-dressed people crowded in (drawn by 6 horses).

Everybody in hats!

I was intrigued by the bicyclists almost uniformly NOT using their hands, the relatively FEW people in the second segment obviously looking at the camera (I wonder if it was camouflaged later?), and the total lack of anything like traffic control.
Loved the fire brigade’s galloping horses.

*Wikipedia says: “The first moving walkway debuted at the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893, in Chicago, Illinois, in the United States. It had two different divisions: one where passengers were seated, and one where riders could stand or walk. It ran in a loop down the length of a lakefront pier to a casino.[7] Six years later a moving walkway was also presented to the public at the Paris Exposition Universelle in 1900. The walkway consisted of three elevated platforms, the first was stationary, the second moved at a moderate speed, and the third at about ten kilometers per hour (six miles per hour). These demonstrations likely served as inspiration for some of H. G. Wells’ settings mentioned in the “Science Fiction” section below.”

The heroics required just to cross the Champs Elysees. And all those Charlot characters walking around. (Think I’ll look into a walking stick.)

Would recommend “The Banquet Years” for a cultural-artistic angle of the era when Paris was the center of the world.

This footage was shot 32 years before my 97 yr old father was born.

I saw an interesting documentary about a year ago that contained a segment on the advent of the “modern” bicycle with roller chains and pneumatic tires, and how it revolutionized personal transportation. It had photo of a fabulous velodrome style freeway for bicycles only, that went from downtown LA to downtown Pasadena. The filmmakers uncovered a portion of the old bike freeway in someone’s backyard in LA.