Excitement
It is not hard to understand what the change meant to the people of Hicksville. Regular travel between home and New York now was feasible for just about everybody, because the tunnels had cut at least an hour off a day's total commute to midtown. More Long Islanders could work in Manhattan now, and more people who already worked there could think of moving to Long Island. In its Hicksville pages, the Long-Islander rhapsodized about the possibilities:
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With Hicksville now squarely in commuting country, its transformation could begin. Next month, Ancient Hixtory will discuss the start of suburban Hicksville, and how it changed in the years before World War I. Not surprisingly, newspapers (no doubt encouraged by real estate agents and developers) took the lead in marketing the future suburbs. Among other things, we'll look at a prominent newspaper article that appeared about a year after the tunnels opened, and see what it says (and what it fails to say) about moving to Hicksville.
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, September 3, 1911
End of Part I
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