Fluorescent Lights
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I have always had a passion for fluorescent lights. Isn't that sick? Who cares?
Right off the bat, incandescent lighting has had 2 strikes against it in my ballgame. I became militantly Pro-Fluorescent in my teens. This in time combined with a growing passion for and towards the New York City subway system.
What joy I felt, an almost unholy, violent stirring deep within my loins when one afternoon, as I exited an express on the way home, I noticed little spikes sticking out of the ceiling at Roosevelt. I quickly deduced what those spikes portended. Roosevelt Avenue was getting it's fluorescents! Soon the spikes were emerging from the ceilings of the other stations still held hostage by the murderous incandescents. The roll call of the dim dungeons read like a veritable who's who (or Where's where) of Northwest Queens, NY: Elmhurst Ave; 65th Street, Northern Blvd; 46th Street; Steinway Street, 36th Street; the venerable and hideous Queens Plaza and last AND least, but always my favorite 23rd Street/Ely Avenue. And I dare anybody to visit Long Island City in Queens and try to find Ely Avenue.
By now I was nearing the end of my 2nd year at high school, and I still couldn't read a newspaper at either of the two transfer points for the express; Roosevelt or Queens Plaza. My alternative was to get up a little earlier and take the local all the way. That had unpleasant repurcussions however. The cavernous station I got off at for school via the local, Lexington & 59th Street, smelled like donuts. Don't get me wrong. At that age I loved donuts. The perfect place to live would've been next door to Duncan Donuts. But when you're exposed to a smell constantly and that smell is all pervasive and all consuming, you tend to get sick of it very quickly. To this day, I can't stand the thought of using that station. I'll bet the smell of those IRT donuts still permeats the place.
Finally the new lights started coming on, first at 23rd and Ely if my memory serves me right. I really don't remember the order in which Roosevelt went "fluorescently on-line". I was too interested in girls, and my lack of success with them, by then. But I did anxiously await everyday to see if the lights were finally lit. In the absense of an acceptable sex life, it was something to look forward to. It was incredible how different the tiles on the station walls looked after the lighting changed. Before the fluorescents, you'd have thought the walls were dark yellow. Actually, YOU probably wouldn't have given it any thought. Only I would ponder such a matter. I went through the same wrenching wait for fluorescents when I moved to Brooklyn, along the F train route. All the stations south of Jay Street, were bastions of "Bulbism". Within a couple of years, however, the tell tale spikes began to sprout from the ceilings. But the delays that accompanied this group of lights put the Queens job to shame.
Eventually the entire line was relit successfully. Yea TA! It was well into the "80's until the elevated stations were done. My Fluorescent fixation (fixturation?) extends to mercury vapor streetlights. I have every intention of enlightening you about these entities. This however, is the subject of another passion and I do not like when one passion intrudes on another's turf. My passions can be very territorial.
Incandescents have even taken over my dreams, where I wake up and can't turn the lights on. If only I had the capital to finance movies. I've already planned a series of horror movies based on fluorescent lighting.
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