 |
| Gustave Doré: Let there be light. |
“Let there be light,” said God in Genesis
1:3, “and there was light.” In myths worldwide, light is associated with life and good, whereas darkness is
associated with death and evil. Lucifer,
the Light Bearer, rebelled against God and was cast down into hell to become
the Prince of Darkness. In many cosmic
myths the forces of light and darkness are at war, nor is the victory of light
guaranteed. Prehistoric humans huddled
around their fire at night, or used fire as a barrier at the entrance to their
cave. For them, darkness meant risk and danger
and prowling wild beasts, whereas light brought at least relative
security. And without light there could
be no life, so they worshiped the sun, the source of life and light. (For more of my take on darkness and night,
see post #64, A West Village Murder and the Fear of Night.)
The story of lighting in the city of New
York, like that of all cities, replicates these cosmic myths and beliefs, for
it is the story of light versus darkness, of pushing back the frontier of
night. In our well-lit cities today, we have little experience of
the night sky, the starry infinitudes of space – an experience both humbling
and inspiring. But back in the
eighteenth century, before the coming of gaslight and electricity in the
nineteenth, darkness was a part of people’s lives, something to wonder at, yet
also something to be reckoned with, something to be fought. And what means of illumination could they
use, to fight back the darkness of night?
Outside, torches; in their homes, the fire on the hearth, candles, and
lamps.
 |
| What we have gained. lecates |
 |
| What we have lost. Michael J. Bennett |
The torch, dating from prehistoric times,
has been called the first portable lamp.
The fabled lighthouse of Alexandria, one of Herodotus’s Seven Wonders of
the World, was simply a soaring tower with a torchlike fire at the top, visible
for miles at sea. In this country, well
into the nineteenth century torchlight parades honored visiting dignitaries like
the Prince of Wales in 1860, and rallied supporters during political campaigns.
 |
| A Byzantine oil lamp. |
 |
| A whale oil lamp. Bullenwächter |
The candle is a relatively recent invention. It was known in China and India before it was created in the West, where it was used by nomadic tribes in Europe in the late Roman period. Beeswax candles were used in medieval church rituals, but since beeswax was expensive, ordinary people used tallow candles, which were smelly and smoky, dripped, and gave a feeble light. (Tallow: a mixture of refined animal fats.) Starting in the eighteenth century, for Americans who could afford them, candles using sperm oil were far superior.
 |
| An English Restoration theater, with candle chandeliers and oil lamp footlights. |
So eighteenth-century New Yorkers fought the night with means of illumination that had been used for centuries, even millennia: torches, hearth fires, lamps, and candles. All these involved flame and, when used inside, had serious drawbacks: they had to burn right side up, be supplied with air, be distanced from inflammable objects, and be protected from drafts.
Another problem: these fires were hard to
start. What, no matches? Not until 1827, when the first friction
matches, called lucifers (that name again!), were invented in England; they
soon appeared in New York. But before
that, how did people light candles and lamps?
From other candles and lamps, if available, otherwise from fire struck
with flint and steel. And yes, there’s
the old joke about doing it by rubbing two Boy Scouts together, inspired by the
Scouts’ practice of rubbing two dry sticks together to produce the friction
that creates a flame. But however it was
done, it was a lot of work.
The nineteenth century brought changes
that revolutionized lighting. Candle making by machine made mass production of candles possible, so that cheap candles
became available to everyone, and with the introduction of paraffin wax in the
mid-1850s, candles were made that burned cleanly without the smell of tallow
candles. But by the second half of the
century candles were on their way out, replaced by competing illuminants. First introduced in London in 1814, gaslight came
soon afterward to New York, where the Common Council granted charters to
competing companies to lay pipes in different sections of the city, replacing
the whale oil lamps then in use. In 1824
a banker’s residence in Cherry Street became the first house in the city to
receive gaslight. (Bankers and their friends have a way of getting the latest improvements first.) In the 1820s and 1830s
gaslight lit more and more of the streets, with lamp lighters lighting the polished
glass boxes of the lamps at dusk and snuffing them at dawn.
But gaslight was not for every community,
as it had several requirements. A plentiful supply of coal, from which the gas
was manufactured, was needed, and the means of transporting it. New York City’s coal was mined in the
mountains of Pennsylvania and shipped by barge via the Delaware and Hudson
Canal to the Hudson River and then on to the city. Gas works were also needed: clusters of red-hot
retorts, where the coal was burned to create gas, and of gas containers, big
bulblike structures of iron where the gas was held, before being sent by underground
pipes to the streetlamps, fancy hotels and stores, and well-appointed homes of
the affluent. Gas works were ugly and
smelly, and therefore confined to the Hudson and East River waterfronts, well
out of sight – and smell – of the fashionable sections of the city.
 |
| Inside a nineteenth-century gas retort. Not something you would want next door. |
Gaslight needed big money and a lot of
effort to put up all those smelly gas works, so it was confined to the big
cities; small towns and rural communities were not accommodated. But it transformed New York, providing
lighting such as had never before been possible. Hotel lobbies glowed, and the front windows
of Fifth Avenue brownstones blazed with light as arriving guests mounted the steep
front stoops, while theaters offered Spanish dancers, waterfalls, and naughty
cancans in a stellar glare, and pickpockets worked overtime in the evening,
though second-story men lamented the illumination, so inimical to their furtive
operations. (We'll learn more about second-story men in a future post about the so-called ladder of thieves; they were on a middle rung, far from the top or the bottom.)
Another significant development came in 1859 with the discovery of oil in a farming district of northwestern Pennsylvania, which ended abruptly that region’s rural tranquility. Oil rigs began drilling intensively, and kerosene, a petroleum derivative, became readily available and cheap enough to be widely used in lamps. As an illuminant it quickly replaced whale oil, which could only be obtained in far distant oceans. Characteristic of the kerosene lamp was a glass chimney that protected the flame and controlled the flow of air to it, and a knob that adjusted the size of the wick, and thus the size and brightness of the flame. Kerosene lamps didn’t require the infrastructure of gaslight and so could be used anywhere. My first awareness of these lamps came in the bad Westerns, often Saturday afternoon serials, that afflicted my childhood. These were the “Meanwhile back at the ranch …” species, humdrum black-and-whites meant to lure their young victims back a week later for the next installment, which they rarely did. Viewing them, I always knew that at some point a fight would erupt in the ranch house, a kerosene lamp would be knocked over, curtains would catch fire, and the whole place go up in flames; I was rarely disappointed.
Later I encountered the lamps in real
life. In the 1960s, when I first went to
Monhegan Island off midcoast Maine, kerosene lamps were still in use there; I
learned such niceties as how to refill them, how to light them, and how to trim
the wicks of these rather cumbersome contraptions.
Schooled by those dreary old Westerns, I was careful to keep them away
from curtains. Only with the creation
some years later of a local company to supply electricity to the island – first
for only a few hours, then for more, and finally all day and night – were the
kerosene lamps supplanted, thus repeating the progress of mid-nineteenth-century
New York. Progress may be long in
coming, but come it does … finally.
By the late 1870s gaslight, so wondrous at
first, and hailed as a clean source of light, had worn out its welcome in the
city. Gas jets emitted headache-inducing
fumes of ammonia, sulfur, and carbon dioxide, turned ceilings black, and defiled
the parlor, that sanctuary of middle-class gentility, with, alas, soot. In the land of Go Ahead, in this
progress-giddy age, surely something better could be devised.
It was.
On December 20, 1880, all of Broadway between Union and Madison Square
was suddenly bathed in light. New
Yorkers were dazzled, amazed. Projecting
the light were a series of twenty-foot-tall cast-iron posts, one per block,
each with an arc light that cast a brilliant glow. Arc lights, powered by steam engines and
electric generators, were cheaper to install than hundreds of lampposts, and
were soon spreading illumination along the avenues and over markets, factories,
railroad stations, and wharves. But arc
lights were too intense for use in homes, and they too gave off noxious fumes,
and created power failures when assailed by storms. (Sound familiar?) Something still better was needed.
 |
| Arc lights along Broadway in 1880. |
In 1878 Thomas Edison, a young inventor
already known for numerous inventions that included the phonograph, informed
the press that was he going to develop an incandescent lamp suitable for
homes. Canny investors on both sides of
the Atlantic perked up their ears, opened their wallets, and helped create the
Edison Electric Light Company, of which Edison himself, wise now in the ways of
Wall Street, retained significant control.
Vast sums and great hopes were invested in this ingenious experimenter,
who in this matter so far had produced only promises – brash, glowing promises,
but promises only, mere words. Supremely
confident, he got to work in his research laboratory in Menlo Park, New
Jersey.
 |
| A portrait of the young Edison. |
Months passed, progress was made. Aldermen and councilmen were invited to Menlo
Park for a gala demonstration of the new lights. Edison established his power station on Pearl
Street, had armies of workmen dig trenches to lay subterranean wires in massive
insulated power mains, and installed powerful generators
in the power station. Then, on September
4, 1882, fifty square downtown blocks housing the city’s key financial,
commercial, and manufacturing establishments were suddenly illuminated. If gaslight had been a wonder, and arc lights
magic, this was a miracle.
J.P. Morgan and the Vanderbilts (those bankers and their friends again!) immediately installed incandescent lights in their mansions, and within a year
over five hundred wealthy homes were electrified. The Stock Exchange followed, then office
buildings, machine shops, piano factories, sugar refineries, department stores,
and theaters, and middle-class homes as well, though tallow candles were still
used in tenements. People in New York,
and then the world over, marveled: with a flick of a switch, there was
light. No lamp to fill, no wick to trim,
no fumes, no flickering, just bright, steady light.
Night life intensified, as hotels, restaurants,
and shops, and brothels and gambling parlors too, turned radiant with light,
and customers flocked. By the
mid-1890s people were beginning to call a stretch of Broadway blazing with
illuminated signs the “Great White Way.”
The New York of today was coming into being, to be further enhanced in the 1920s and 1930s by the advent of neon lights, first developed commercially by the French engineer and inventor Georges Claude. Today, if in our cities awareness of the
night sky has all but vanished, no one seems to care, since there is so much to do at night down
here. Yes, darkness has been
vanquished.
 |
| Times Square at night, the ultimate in neon lights. Boris Dzhingarov |
 |
| Witch hazel in Central Park. Downtowngal |
 |
| An eighteenth-century dowser. |
A note on witch hazel: A short article in last Sunday's Times reminds me that even this late in the autumn, with snow predicted, this strangest of plants is blooming. I have seen it on Monhegan Island in Maine, and down here in Central Park, though you can easily pass by this ribbon-petaled, spidery yellow flower and not even realize it's a flower. Yes, this is the source of the astringent sold in pharmacies as a remedy for itching (it works!), bleeding, inflammation, acne, bruises, and other skin conditions. And yes, it was once used for "water witching": a dowser or water witch would hold a forked branch of the plant and traipse an area where underground water might be found, until the stick was tugged or bent downward, indicating the source of water; a well would then be dug. Skeptical? Well, I haven't tried it myself, but there are those who insist that it works. Try it for yourself and report back to me.
Coming soon: The Beauty and Danger of the Palisades.
© 2013 Clifford Browder
No comments:
Post a Comment