Wednesday, April 17, 2013

The Portsmouth ferry

Carl, while traveling through the Downtown Tunnel (which goes from Norfolk to Portsmouth): I remember when this went in. It'll never work, they said. Portsmouthers love their ferry. Three months later... (He laughs).

Ellen: It's a lot quicker than a ferry.

Carl: Well, not really. I mean, if you were driving a car you had to line up. But if you were a pedestrian, you just paid your ten cents and walked right on.

Ellen: But this was built when the car was becoming the major source of transportation, right? In the fifties sometime?

Carl: Yeah. Before the war, most people didn't have cars. They took buses or streetcars, or just walked everywhere. But in the fifties... that was really the first era when everyone had cars.