After Dark In 2020, more than 304 million streetlights lit the night sky. And more added daily.

Before 24-7 illumination, eating and sleeping patterns were dramatically different. Once the sun set, activity was restricted. In fact, it was common to sleep the night away in a pattern of two four-hour sleep periods with one or two hours of wakefulness in between. Those hours were spent reading, writing by candlelight or praying. Prayer manuals offered special prayers for the in between sleep period. Although sleeping eight hours is considered normal now, sleep experiments resulted in participates falling into the segmented system routine after being deprived of artificial light. This result suggests segmented sleep is the natural sleep pattern for humans.

Night Time Trolley
Budapest's trolley/tram system of lines is numbered from 1 to 69, with gaps in the numbering system due to the closing of lines over the years.

There are thirty lines carrying 370 thousand people per year on the main radial and riverside routes on both sides of the Danube and several of the bridges. Tram tickets are validated by using the punch machines on board the trolley. To exit at a stop, a button on the door must be pushed, or the door will not open.
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72nd Street Subway—Third Place
468 subway stations service 4.5 million riders on an average weekday, which means approximately 1.4 billion riders per year.Twenty-six routes carry riders over 660 miles of track each day.

How much electrical power is required? Enough to light the city of Buffalo, New York for an entire year.

Looking closely at the photograph, a vertical beam of blue light is in the background-”Tribute in Light” (Photograph taken September 11, 2004.)
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Yellow Fog—Honorable Mention NY Center For Photographic Art
The sodium vapor street lamps on the west side of Manhattan, which burn with a yellow light, create a ghostly, surreal cityscape.

The Brush Electric Light and Power Company installed the first electric street lamps on Broadway from 14th to 26th streets in 1880. The company also illuminated Madison Square by placing arc lamps at the top of a one-hundred and sixty foot (160) tower. The lighting effect was said to resemble pale moonlight.

Major metropolitan areas in the United States are replacing the yellow sodium vapor lamps with cheaper brighter LED lamps, which removes the yellow glow.
Astronomers say the change makes their work harder by creating light pollution.
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The Child In Us
June 5, 2019, New York City police began Operation Meltdown. The city confiscated 46 ice cream trucks, which owed at least $10,000 in outstanding parking or traffic tickets. Between 2009 and 2017 some ice cream companies allegedly had 22,000 outstanding summons for traffic violations. A web of fraudulent transactions was discovered wherein ice cream trucks were re-registered under the names of shells companies without bank accounts in order to avoid paying traffic violations.
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9th and 10th Avenue— First Place
In 1808, John Randall, Jr. laid out the plans for New York City's street system. He designed a gridiron system of north-south avenues crossed at right angles by east-west streets. His gridiron spanned the area of east Houston Street to 155th Street. This system is still in use today.
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Big Apple—New York City
John J. Fitzgerald, a reporter for the Morning Telegraph, used the term, Big Apple, during the 1920's in his newspaper column Around the Big Apple. The term apple was used by stable hands in New Orleans when referring to horse racing and racetracks. Fitzgerald may have picked up the term from jockeys and trainers in New Orleans who aspired to race on the Big Apple, meaning a New York City racetrack.

In 1997 the corner of 54th & Broadway, where Fitzgerald lived for 30 years, was renamed Big Apple Corner.
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Always Remember--911 Memorial Lights
The Tribute in Light is an installation of lights placed at the site of the World Trade Center to create two vertical columns of blue light in remembrance of the terrorists attacks of September 11, 2001.

On each September 11 starting in 2003, the lights blaze into the night sky. On a clear night, the lights are seen from over 60 miles away, and clearly visible to all of New York City and most of northern New Jersey, Long Island, and as far south as Hamilton, New Jersey-near Trenton.
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Nighttime At Lincoln Center—Second Place
On May 14, 1959 President Dwight D. Eisenhower broke ground for Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

New York City's Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts became a reality in September, 1962 when the first of its performing spaces, Philharmonic Hall (now Avery Fisher Hall), was inaugurated with a concert of music by Vaughan Williams and Mahler (among others) played by the New York Philharmonic conducted by its Music Director of the time, Leonard Bernstein.
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Columbus Circle From Inside
Shops at Columbus Circle, a four story mall in the Time Warner Center, features a 150 foot high glass wall, on which and through which, the hustle and bustle of Manhattan is seen.

The Time Warner Center includes a luxury hotel, 198 luxury condominiums, upscale shopping mall, expensive restaurants, a concert hall, CNN studios, and a large Whole Foods Market in the basement.

The entire structure, covering half of Columbus Circle, is designed to allow cell phones to work anywhere in the building—including elevators.
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Christopher Columbus At Night
Located at the intersection of Broadway, Central Park West, Central Park South (59th Street), and Eighth Avenue, Columbus Circle was completed in 1905. The designer of Central Park, Frederick Law Olmsted, intended for this to the main entrance, and this would create a grand entryway for what was to be one of the largest city parks in the world.

The circle itself was designed by William Eno, who was known for devising ways to make travel safer, even in the days when cars were few in New York City.
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Central Park Night
Even for longtime Manhattan residents, navigating one’s way in Central Park can be tricky. It is fairly easy to get turned around and in certain parts of the park landmark buildings can be obscured.

Some New Yorkers know the nineteenth-century cast-iron lampposts in Central Park are stamped with a with a four digit code to identify the location in the park. The first two digits on the lamppost are the nearest cross street. The last two digits indicate east and west. An even number means closer to Central Park West, an odd number closer to 5th Avenue.

The last two digits increase as one moves toward the center of the park. For example, 9703 indicates a location on the West side aligned with 97th Street while 9746 indicates the East side close to the middle of the park.

This numerical system was originally designed to help park employees locate lamps in need of servicing, but it is also a subtle method used by visitors to know where they are in the park—at least those who know the secret.
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The Plaza—Set Back From 5th Avenue
After two years and $12 million dollars, the 19-story Plaza Hotel opened its doors to the public on October 21, 1907. Situated at Fifth Avenue and Central Park South, it was described at the greatest hotel in the world.

Originally, The Plaza was the primary residence of wealthy New Yorkers. The first to sign the register and stay at The Plaza was Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt. The original nightly rate for a single room started at the outrageously expensive $2.50 per night.

In 2005, The Plaza Hotel was converted into condominiums.
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Horse and Buggy—New York City
Lined up on 59th street between Fifth and Sixth Avenue, horse-drawn carriages wait to take patrons though Central Park at almost any time of the day.
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Manhattan Moon
The Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle in New York City consists of two twin 750 foot towers bridged by a multistory atrium.. There is an upscale mall at he base of the building known as The Shops at Columbus Circle. The rest of the building is occupied by offices, residential condominiums, New York hotel, and some of New York’s most expensive restaurants. Starting in 2021, Deutsche Bank replaced Time Warner to occupy the 1.1 million square foot office area. The center was renamed the Deutsche Bank Center.
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Broadway and 60
New York City’s famous street, Broadway, is associated with live theater and Times Square, but Broadway is also one of the world’s longest streets. It originates in Lower Manhattan at Bowling Green Park and ends in Albany, New York, a distance of 150 miles. Bowling Green Park is believed to be the location where Native Americans held council and where Peter Minuit bought Manhattan from them.

Everywhere Broadway crosses an avenue is a park created by the triangle or square space as a result of the crossing. The only exception is where Broadway crosses 5th avenue at 23rd street–the famous flatiron building takes up the space.

Broadway’s original name was the Wiechquaekeck Trail, an Algonquin Native American trade route.
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Promenade
In the early 20th century, John D. Rockefeller leased land from Columbia University, which was located between 48th and 51st streets, Fifth and Sixth Avenue. The plan was to build the New York City Metropolitan Opera at that location. With the stock market crash of 1929, the Met withdrew from the project.

Rockefeller came up with a plan to build a business complex instead now known as Rockefeller Center. The promenade, also know as the Channel Gardens, leads from Fifth Avenue to the sunken plaza which is used as a ice skating rink during the winter.
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Going The Same Way
The first electric marquee appeared on Broadway in 1891 at a theater on Madison Square at Broadway and 23rd Street. The famous Flatiron Building now occupies the site.

By midway through the following decade, the street blazed with electric signs as each theater announced its shows and stars in white lights.

With the advent of a subway system, several lines converging at 42nd Street and Broadway, Times Square became the obvious choice for a new theater district.

There were so many theaters with bright white lights, it became known as the “Great White Way”!
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After Dark In 2020, more than 304 million streetlights lit the night sky. And more added daily.

All photos © 2004-2023 Gary Ricketts. All rights reserved.

No derivative works can be used, published, distributed or sold without written permission.