A proposal for multiple time zones was first proposed by Reverend Charles F. Inaccurate times led to a number of fatal crashes in the Northeast in 1853, yet Congress took little action and authorized the building of the transcontinental railroad, which led to even more collisions. When it was 12:12 in New York, it was 12:24 in Boston, 12:07 in Philadelphia, and 11:17 in Chicago.” At Pennsylvania Station in Jersey City, New Jersey, one clock displayed Philadelphia time and another New York time. The Lake Shore clock said it was only 11:25. ![]() “He might be met by a friend at the station whose watch indicated 11:40 Buffalo time. “A passenger traveling from Portland, Maine, to Buffalo could arrive in Buffalo at 12:15 according to his own watch set by Portland time,” Roberts writes. But as railroads spread throughout the country, it was nearly impossible to standardize the time. According to Sam Roberts in his book Grand Central: How a Train Station Transformed America, “Typically, noon would be regularly signaled so people could synchronize their clocks and watches.” From dropping a ball down a flagpole in Manhattan to ringing a gong, settlements all across the country would alert people of noon. ![]() Until 1883, virtually every place in the country set local time according to the sun. Yet, for much of this history, people didn’t always know the “correct” time or date. ![]() New York’s history has included everything from transit strikes to riots over Shakespeare to immigration from nearly every country in the world.
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