Re-Invent the Wheel (1964); NYC Subway Express/Local Anecdote (1913)

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RE-INVENT THE WHEEL

Fred got to JSTOR before I did. OED didn't check? Some more of interest.

Also the two below, from JSTOR. The 1933 hit came up for "reinvent the wheel," but I didn't see that exact wording.

(JSTOR)
Review: [untitled review]
Author(s) of Review: Judith Shatnoff
Reviewed Work(s): Woman in the Dunes (Suna No Onna) by Hiroshi Teshigahara
Film Quarterly > Vol. 18, No. 2 (Winter, 1964), pp. 43-46
Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0015-1386%28196424%2918%3A2%3C43%3AWITD%28N%3E2.0.CO%3B2-4
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Pg. 45:
What we have here is a monumental effort to reconcile science with philosophy; that is, to affirm science in human terms, as a tool, even if it means metaphorically reducing the context of life to a level--to a sandpit--in which it is possible, metaphorically, to re-invent the wheel.


Case Law and Stare Decisis: Concerning "Prajudizienrecht in Amerika"
Max Radin
Columbia Law Review > Vol. 33, No. 2 (Feb., 1933), pp. 199-212
Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0010-1958%28193302%2933%3A2%3C199%3ACLASDC%3E2.0.CO%3B2-B
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Pg. 200: The law has already been discovered by a man better fit to find it out. It is certainly futile to rediscover America or to reinvent the steam engine.

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NYC SUBWAY EXPRESS/LOCAL ANECDOTE

I'll probably add this to my web site.


A TREASURY OF AMERICAN ANECDOTES
edited by B. A. Botkin
New York: Random House
1957

[From GREENWICH VILLAGE, TODAY & YESTERDAY (1949), pp. 25-26--ed.]

Pg. 186: _Chinese Philosopher in the Subway_
[Said] the Chinese diplomat and philosopher, Li Hung-chang, [on his visit to New York in 1896], when his official guide hurried him off one subway train into another a few feet away, "Why do we change?

"Oh, that train was a local."

"And what is this?"

"This is an express. It makes no stops till we reach Grand Central. We save six minutes."

A pause.

"And what," asked Ambassador Li, "are we going to do with that six minutes?


(PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS)
19 October 1913, Washington Post, pg. MS4:
_WHY SAVE SO MUCH TIME?_
[Harper's Magazine]

In no other metropolis of the world are similar expenditures contemplated for traffic purposes, and here one touches elemental reasons. Not only is the physical conformation of New York without a parallel, but nowehre else may be found a public so dominantly insistent, so temperamentally avaricious, on the subject of time. Moments spent in transit must be cut down to the irreducible minimum, no matter what prodigality of the same fleeting commodity may ensue. To illuminate this consider an actual occurrence. An Englishman who recently droped in at a friend's office on Twenty-seventh street was asked to dine. At the nearest subway station they took a local train to the Grand Central, there dived across the platform in an express, which disgorged them at Seventy-second street, where they entered another local that finally deposited them at the door of the Gothamite's apartment on Broadway and Seventy-ninth street. Followed then a smoke, a refreshing drink, and a most leisurely dinner. Halfway through his dessert, the Briton looked at his best.

"I've been wondering why we took three trains to get here?

Why? Wcsavedfor minutes!"

The Briton pondered. "I say," he questioned, thoughtfully, "what are you going to do with them?