The Trolly Ornament is the transit that decided speed was a secondary consideration and experience was the entire point, formed by hand from gathered glass with a painted cable-car profile, hook and cord at the roof. San Francisco has been debating this arrangement since 1873 and came down firmly on the side of the trolley, which says something about the city or about trolleys or about the specific case for beautiful machines that are slightly impractical. My friend Kenji rode the cable car on his first visit and said he finally understood civic pride measured at a particular gradient. He rode it again the next morning and the morning after that, each time arriving late to wherever he was headed and each time hearing that the person waiting expected exactly this. Get this for whoever is nearly always slightly late and completely worth the wait. TIFF archives machines that outlived their original purpose and became monuments; this glass trolley makes the argument in miniature.
