The R38 was the first car class to be delivered to New York City with air conditioning installed. Photo taken March 5, 2005.

With much of the eastern United States experiencing a sweltering heat wave with temperatures approaching 100 F and heat indices near 115 F, I thought it would be a good time to share this 2012 article from CityLab about the history of air conditioning on the NYC subway.  If you think it is hot on the subway now, just remember that only about half of New York’s subway car fleet had A/C in 1983.

Oren’s Reading List is an occasional feature on The Travelogue in which I share articles that I’ve read that might also be of interest to the readers of this website.