With all of the news recently about the extreme heat in Europe, people forget that in Brooklyn, we survived many summers without air-conditioning. I remember a neighbor of ours installed a window unit, either in the late 1950's or early 1960's. After many sweltering summers (including one in 1966, where it reached 106 degrees in Brooklyn,), I ordered several window units from the Montgomery Ward catalog division. The very large one went in our living room, and we had to have an electrician install a 220 volt connection for it. The small ones didn't require it. However, it was great once they were on, as not only did those units cool the house, but they eliminated street noise, since the windows were closed. Not too long ago, I noticed that P.S. 217 installed a number of window a/c units for the classrooms. When we went there, there wasn't one a/c unit, and it was very unpleasant, when it became very warm in June, or when the school term started in September.
In addition to the a/c units, we also cooled off from the heat at Riis Park, in the Rockaways. At that time, we were able to wade out more than waist deep into the waves, and ride the waves into the shore. One time, a gigantic wave knocked all of us under. As far as shark sightings went, I think that there was only one report of such a sighting in 1960, and there were reports that law enforcement fired at the sharks from the air, from a helicopter.

Reference ID: BK96915

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