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My city used old-style mercury-vapor street lights up until the early 80s. For those who have never seen these lights, they have a bluish-white appearance but

My city used old-style mercury-vapor street lights up until the early 80s. For those who have never seen these lights, they have a bluish-white appearance but emit light only at a few very specific wavelengths, and almost none in the red spectrum. The effect is that under these lights a red car would look strangely black while everything else more or less looked normal color. I loved the effect. I have fond childhood memories of seeing my street bathed in the bluish-white light from these street lights, especially during those long winter nights when the ground is covered in white snow. I am quite certain that these street lights did not produce a generation of "physiologically unwell" people. My city has now begun switching to LED lights and I think they look terrific.

arpa 10y ago
These mercury-vapor lamps were used until 90-somethings where i used to live. People would say that until these bluish-white lamps were phased out by orange ones, people in the street would look as if they were dead; I would always counter with "they sure look as if they're alive now". Maybe because of childhood nostalgia I always preferred the bluish-white nights instead of that pervasive orange ones, especially during overcast winter nights where everything in thirty kilometer radius would become orange and unnatural. Clear nights with full moon were godsend. But things are changing nowadays and our city also started using LEDs and by Moses, they are so much unbelievably better in all aspects! Even if they emit that "unseen blue" light, it is most definitely not worse than the insanely pervasive orange...