I was living at 537 W. Deming in the Lincoln Park section of Chicago in the summer of 1995. The address and city rate mention because that summer Chicago suffered one of those brutal and nationally notable heat waves. The kind that could claim a high death count.
Where it became interesting, while also enervating, was that air conditioning even in the reasonably nice parts of Chicago wasn’t a foregone conclusion in 1995. My apartment lacked AC, and the implications of what it lacked were awful.
Working from home at the time, I periodically took cold showers throughout the day just to cool off however briefly. Nights were awful too, plus the constant sweating made for endless fatigue. Oh well, I survived the summer.
What’s perhaps interesting is that assuming the apartment building is still upright, it almost certainly has air conditioning today. It’s a happy truth in these times that apartments, houses and cars must have refrigerated air. Americans can’t function without it, and they can’t precisely because what was once so obscure, and yes, a luxury item, is now a common good. Thank goodness!
My own experiences, experiences of family members, and experiences of friends came to mind a great deal while reading Salvatore Basile’s essential 2014 book, Cool: How Air Conditioning Changed Everything. Basile provides readers with a very useful and grueling history of the efforts of man to wage war against heat.
To read Basile is to marvel at how awful things used to be. And this was true for everyone, rich and poor alike. Think The Great Gatsby, and the “immensely rich characters” who endured “the hottest day of the year with no relief even in a luxury suite at the Plaza.”
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