From podcast: The height of the Moonlight Towers was a means of accomodating the lighting technology at the time: carbon arc light, a precursor to the incandescent bulb. Arc lights are essentially a continued spark between two carbon electrodes. They are extremely bright and produce a lot of glare—the sort of thing you use in a searchlight. Arc lights at street level would be blinding, so municipalities put the lights up high in order to spread the glare out. Still, even on their high tower, arc lights were tremendously bright. Their light would be harsh by modern standards, but they were an especially stark contrast to gas lamps. A gas lamp has the power of about 15 candles. An arc light has the power of a couple thousand.
Lugging around my 10lb of unshelled Pecans had grown old so I often would relax in a park and shell my pecan stash. I found a dry spot underneath the bridge and got "crackn"! A guitarist showed up and soon introduced himself as Clancy. His buddy Mike on Sax arrived in a bit and they quickly filled the echoing space with great jams. A bluesy/folky mixture of originals, a Townes Van Zandt and a Ryan Adams song. Clancy even let me strum a few licks which Mike quickly pickd up and complimented with his smooths sax. It was an unexpected and fun time underneath the bridge downtown. |