LIGHTS ON
One of the great pleasures of “spooky season” is when the sun sets early and the streetlamps come on at dinnertime. In the nineteenth century, before Daylight Saving Time, it was even more noticeable.
While by the end of the century, even the poorest homes had some kind of indoor lighting, if only a few candles, days really were shorter. Every minute that candle, oil lamp or gas fixture was lit meant money burned. So not only were there literally fewer hours of light, there was less time to work.
Even now, the moment when the streetlamps come on is a little bit magical. It was more so in the 1800s, because indoor lighting wasn’t nearly as efficient as it is now, and the difference between day and night was much more dramatic.
For some of the newest New Yorkers, it may even have seemed quite literally magical. If you’d come to the City from a small farming community, whether upstate or overseas, those gas or electric lamps were like nothing you’d ever seen. Just one more amazing sight in a new world full of them.
Native New Yorkers, though, were used to streetlamps. The City went into lighting early – and big. In the late 1600s, homeowners were required to light windows facing the streets, with the goal of easing the trade that was the foundation of the economy there. By the 1760s, the City was collecting a levy and setting up the first streetlights, which were big oil lamps. The tax paid for the lamps and the oil to keep them burning all night.
As technology improved and New York grew, streetlamps changed and spread through the neighborhoods. Broadway was completely gas-lit in the late 1820s, and improved versions of gaslights would survive into the 20th century. But electricity was coming. Brush Electric and Power installed the first electric streetlights on Broadway in 1880, and in 1892, big fancy ones were put up on Fifth Avenue.
For most of the City, though, the turn of the 20th century was still gaslight time. Gas streetlights survived in residential areas for decades, and many homes also relied on them. In other parts of the world, gas lights never entirely went away, and some communities ultimately revived gas streetlights as a nostalgic draw. South Orange, New Jersey actually has a gas lamp as its symbol, and cities from Manhattan Beach, California to Prague, Czech Republic have gas lighting in special areas.
Gas light was also big in the theatre. It was the most popular way of lighting houses for a long time, and as in the rest of the world, electricity moved in slowly to replace it. Ella Shane, as an opera singer who tours frequently, would be familiar with both the literal limelight, the glow cast by a particular kind of gas lamp, as well as the figurative one.
Ella and her cousin Tommy also have gas light in their townhouse at Washington Square. There’s a reason people sometimes refer to the late 19th century as the Gaslight Era, and think of it with a nostalgic glow. Gas light had a greenish-white tinge and the flame flickered a bit in ways that modern electric (and certainly LED) lights don’t, so it really did look different.
More romantic? Well, that’s up to you. But there might just be a goodnight kiss in the gaslights in A FATAL FIRST NIGHT…
Got an idea for a Throwback Thursday post? Drop it in the comments!
While by the end of the century, even the poorest homes had some kind of indoor lighting, if only a few candles, days really were shorter. Every minute that candle, oil lamp or gas fixture was lit meant money burned. So not only were there literally fewer hours of light, there was less time to work.
Even now, the moment when the streetlamps come on is a little bit magical. It was more so in the 1800s, because indoor lighting wasn’t nearly as efficient as it is now, and the difference between day and night was much more dramatic.
For some of the newest New Yorkers, it may even have seemed quite literally magical. If you’d come to the City from a small farming community, whether upstate or overseas, those gas or electric lamps were like nothing you’d ever seen. Just one more amazing sight in a new world full of them.
Native New Yorkers, though, were used to streetlamps. The City went into lighting early – and big. In the late 1600s, homeowners were required to light windows facing the streets, with the goal of easing the trade that was the foundation of the economy there. By the 1760s, the City was collecting a levy and setting up the first streetlights, which were big oil lamps. The tax paid for the lamps and the oil to keep them burning all night.
As technology improved and New York grew, streetlamps changed and spread through the neighborhoods. Broadway was completely gas-lit in the late 1820s, and improved versions of gaslights would survive into the 20th century. But electricity was coming. Brush Electric and Power installed the first electric streetlights on Broadway in 1880, and in 1892, big fancy ones were put up on Fifth Avenue.
For most of the City, though, the turn of the 20th century was still gaslight time. Gas streetlights survived in residential areas for decades, and many homes also relied on them. In other parts of the world, gas lights never entirely went away, and some communities ultimately revived gas streetlights as a nostalgic draw. South Orange, New Jersey actually has a gas lamp as its symbol, and cities from Manhattan Beach, California to Prague, Czech Republic have gas lighting in special areas.
Gas light was also big in the theatre. It was the most popular way of lighting houses for a long time, and as in the rest of the world, electricity moved in slowly to replace it. Ella Shane, as an opera singer who tours frequently, would be familiar with both the literal limelight, the glow cast by a particular kind of gas lamp, as well as the figurative one.
Ella and her cousin Tommy also have gas light in their townhouse at Washington Square. There’s a reason people sometimes refer to the late 19th century as the Gaslight Era, and think of it with a nostalgic glow. Gas light had a greenish-white tinge and the flame flickered a bit in ways that modern electric (and certainly LED) lights don’t, so it really did look different.
More romantic? Well, that’s up to you. But there might just be a goodnight kiss in the gaslights in A FATAL FIRST NIGHT…
Got an idea for a Throwback Thursday post? Drop it in the comments!
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