Remember then?

[hunter]

5. I once got a parking ticket for blocking a neighbor's sidewalk coal chute.

I got the ticket dismissed because the house hadn't taken a coal delivery for at least fifty years.

Our house, which was across the street, had a big iron "octopus furnace" in the basement that had originally burned coal. It had been converted to oil in the 'forties, and was converted again to gas in the 'sixties. The basement still smelled of oil and coal dust. The oil tank had been removed but some of the oil pipes remained.

It's hard to imagine how dirty the air in cities must have been when everyone was heating their homes with coal unless you've been to a place where they still do.