Today’s photo of the week features little Pat Piccione blowing a noisemaker on a Brooklyn street. His clothing is quaintly old-fashioned to our eyes: a blousy tunic and shorts, complete with gaiters - twice as much clothing as one would expect to see on a modern child. Adding a note of mystery is the shadow silhouette of a woman photographer in dress and hat using a top-down viewfinder camera.
The main action of this photo is charming, but the quiet parenthetical story here is just as interesting. Pat is standing on a patch of sidewalk built of glass bricks that allow light to illuminate the space under the sidewalk, likely to be part of the subway system. Those bricks, called vault lights, can be seen all over New York City, safely bringing light under the street where metal grates would be inconvenient or dangerous. The idea of skylights is ancient, but in 1845, Kansas inventor Thaddeus Hyatt designed modular sets of sturdy glass lenses set into cast-iron plates, making them easy to install. An interesting detail - those familiar with these glass blocks will notice that a large number of them are a beautiful amethyst violet. I had always thought this was an aesthetic choice, but the linked article explains that the addition of manganese dioxide, used to clarify and stabilize the glass can, with exposure to UV light, turn purple over time.
The innovation was adopted all over the country, and made the inventor a rich man. Hyatt, a committed abolitionist, used his wealth to fund efforts to make Kansas a free state during the Civil War.
Interested in seeing more photos from CBH’s collections? Visit our online image gallery, which includes a selection of our images, or the digital collections portal at Brooklyn Public Library. We welcome appointments to research our entire collection of images, archives, maps, and special collections. Our reference staff is available to help with your research! You can reach us at cbhreference@bklynlibrary.org.
This blog post reflects the opinions of the author and does not necessarily represent the views of Brooklyn Public Library.
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