Welcome to the New York City Police Department, 1909. These men are telephone operators at police headquarters switchboard.

I wonder what sort of emergencies people were calling in with in 1909.

I tend to romanticize the turn of the century, so I’m imagining it would be frantic calls about cats stranded in trees or maybe the occasional Masher!

Perhaps they had an elaborate protocol for answering calls. Instead of a gruff “911, what’s your emergency?” it would be more like, “Good evening, you’ve reached the New York City police headquarters switchboard. How do you do?”

LOC