Trolly workers, back in the days of gas street lamps.

My parents told me there was quite a system of streetcars in Elmira. One went up W. Thurston for example. My mother and her siblings often rode one from Elmira Heights to St Casimirs school. ( Hawthorn Court used to be a cornfield per my mother and it used to scare her when she had to walk by it on her way home. That was a long walk. )