Discussion Groups / English Usage / November 2006

Interesting story. I've always liked Greek mythology.

Marius Hancu

} Marius Hancu wrote:
}> Hello:
}>
}> I wonder what the little Mercuries are doing here:-)
}>
}> Are they small representations of Mercury, the god (Hermes)?
}> A trademark for bulbs?
}>
}> -----
}> ... crowds welled at the corners under the bronze streetlamps with the
}> little Mercuries ...
}>
}> E. L. Doctorow, Billy Bathgate, p. 283
}
} Interestingly, but perhaps not responsive to your question, crossroads
} in ancient Athens were marked with herms (or hermae), squared pillars
} with busts, usually of Hermes.

Just to try for both interesting _and_ responsive, I'd guess it was the
mercury-vapor bulbs mentioned by Garrett Wollman <wollman@csail.mit.edu>.

My cousin Daniel Lane was electrocuted in the line of duty while trying to
fix a malfunctioning street lamp at the corner of Cooke and Grove Streets
in Waterbury, Connecticut, on the evening of August 7, 1913.  Presumably
it was one of the mercury-vapor bulbs referred to in this thread, but I
don't know for sure.  He is memorialized both in Connecticut and at the
National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial at Judiciary Square in our
nation's capital in the shadow (as it were) of the National Building
Museum (which is mostly known for the inaugual balls held there.  It's
probably googlable.

He was born in Cornwall Bridge, as was my great grandfather.  Not the one
who lived in Detroit, but the one who moved to Oswego Falls, New York,
which is now part of Fulton.  Robert Fulton was born in Lancaster County,
Pennsylvania, which is adjacent to Cecil County, Maryland, on the
Susquehanna and Octoraro Rivers.  Cecil County is of course in the
northeast corner of Maryland at the head of the Chesapeake Bay (Largest
Estuary in America), at whose heart is the Town of North East.

What about sodium-vapor lamps?

I suspect you're correct.

Brian

Eh?  If anything it's on the purple side of blue.  Green is right out.
Do you have normal color vision?

When is the novel set?  The first commercial mercury streetlighting
fixture was developed in 1948, according to Wikipedia.  Also, mercury
lamps are anything but "little" to someone used to ordinary household
bulbs.  The early ones would probably have been the size of American
footballs.

The IMDB.com listing for the movie version says "In the [sic] 1935,
fifteen year old street hustler Billy Bathgate...", a decade or two too
early.

The mythological interpretation seems more likely to me, especially
with the capital M and the reference to bronze.