I remember the Washington Hotel, St. Louis, Missouri,in 1957, where you opened the windows to the outdoors just like at home with the upper half lowered part way and the bottom half raised part way. The transom over the room door ventilated the hot air out of the upper half of the window, and the the lower admitted the cooler air and ran underneath the room door. You left your shoes in the hallway overnight to be cleaned and polished. A black electric fan in the room was for the warmer nights.
They used to have a riverboat on the Mississippi River for couples to dance into the late night, because the air temperatures over the river were cooler and a way of escaping the hot summer night air ashore. Some of the movie theaters were popular if for no other reason than they were one of the few places a person could go and experience “refrigerated air” for a few hours during the heat waves.
one of the few places a person could go and experience refrigerated air for a few hours during the heat waves.
The first time my wife had to go to the ER a few years ago, she was surprised at what she saw; The local poor Amish would come to the ER waiting room to watch cable TV and enjoy some AC, buying snacks and drinks from the machines. She thought that I was kidding at first, then after several hours of waiting and watching the people, she saw that they had nobody that was a patient; it was just a night out at the movies for them. LOL