Monumental Blue by Peter McGrain, Greater Rochester International Airport, Rochester, NY, USA
Ektachrome Blue some of us will remember from the pre-digital age as a transparency film produced by the Kodak company of Rochester, NY. Invented in 1946, it had to be used with caution because it might give your transparencies (slides) a ghastly blue hue. More than fifty years earlier a young man from Hammondsport, NY, Glenn Curtiss (1878-1930), worked for Kodak, then still named Eastman. Among his inventions was a stencil machine (I wonder whether it used blue or purple ink then, as I recall from the fifties and early sixties). He was more of a mechanic, though, and became a pioneer in the aircraft industry.
Curtiss developed an engine with which an early airplane was fitted, called appropriately the Curtiss biplane. This was the plane that on July 7, 1911 made the very first successful flight in Rochester. Flown by Captain John (“Jack”) J. Frisbie (I don’t know if there is a relation to the popular frisbee toss-toy) (1868-1911), the plane was airborne for only about nine minutes and reached an altitude of 2000 feet. The local newspaper gives a great account of Frisbie’s feat, and quotes him memorably: “Pedestrians looked like insects merely moving along the pavement”. Frisbie regrettably lost his life in a nasty flying accident on September 11, 1911, in Kansas: the New York Times of that day reported that “Crowd goads airman to flight and death”. And indeed, also people in Rochester had mocked Curtiss and tried to dissuade the “Birdman” from his flying plans.
In 1921, Britton Field was bought by Rochester, and a first hangar was built in 1927. Later renamed Rochester Airport, the original name rang a bell of association in my mind. Nathaniel Lord Britton (1857-1934) and Charles Louis Pollard (1872-1945), two foremost American botanists, had been the moving force in establishing the so-called ‘Rochester Code’ for nomenclature in botany. This code was agreed upon at the 1892 meeting of the Botany Club during the annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science held in Rochester. But there have been many developments since then.
To return to ‘blue’: this marvellous blue stained glass window called “The Monument” (1992) is by the innovative artist Peter McGrain. Like Curtiss’s, Frisbie’s and Britton’s, it is cutting-edge science and technology. It is made of dichroic glass, which is a high-tech spin-off of space-age invention. Dichroic coatings of metallic oxides give glass the property of having more than one color, all depending on the angle from which it is viewed. This window has every kind of hue of blue and purple to be imagined, and the photo does only scant justice to its versatility.
The window is placed in the central atrium of the terminal. The rocking chairs can be used to contemplate the apron of the airport and to mull over the vicissitudes of historical tidbits.
Monumental Blue by Peter McGrain, Greater Rochester International Airport, Rochester, NY, USA
Ektachrome Blue some of us will remember from the pre-digital age as a transparency film produced by the Kodak company of Rochester, NY. Invented in 1946, it had to be used with caution because it might give your transparencies (slides) a ghastly blue hue. More than fifty years earlier a young man from Hammondsport, NY, Glenn Curtiss (1878-1930), worked for Kodak, then still named Eastman. Among his inventions was a stencil machine (I wonder whether it used blue or purple ink then, as I recall from the fifties and early sixties). He was more of a mechanic, though, and became a pioneer in the aircraft industry.
Curtiss developed an engine with which an early airplane was fitted, called appropriately the Curtiss biplane. This was the plane that on July 7, 1911 made the very first successful flight in Rochester. Flown by Captain John (“Jack”) J. Frisbie (I don’t know if there is a relation to the popular frisbee toss-toy) (1868-1911), the plane was airborne for only about nine minutes and reached an altitude of 2000 feet. The local newspaper gives a great account of Frisbie’s feat, and quotes him memorably: “Pedestrians looked like insects merely moving along the pavement”. Frisbie regrettably lost his life in a nasty flying accident on September 11, 1911, in Kansas: the New York Times of that day reported that “Crowd goads airman to flight and death”. And indeed, also people in Rochester had mocked Curtiss and tried to dissuade the “Birdman” from his flying plans.
In 1921, Britton Field was bought by Rochester, and a first hangar was built in 1927. Later renamed Rochester Airport, the original name rang a bell of association in my mind. Nathaniel Lord Britton (1857-1934) and Charles Louis Pollard (1872-1945), two foremost American botanists, had been the moving force in establishing the so-called ‘Rochester Code’ for nomenclature in botany. This code was agreed upon at the 1892 meeting of the Botany Club during the annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science held in Rochester. But there have been many developments since then.
To return to ‘blue’: this marvellous blue stained glass window called “The Monument” (1992) is by the innovative artist Peter McGrain. Like Curtiss’s, Frisbie’s and Britton’s, it is cutting-edge science and technology. It is made of dichroic glass, which is a high-tech spin-off of space-age invention. Dichroic coatings of metallic oxides give glass the property of having more than one color, all depending on the angle from which it is viewed. This window has every kind of hue of blue and purple to be imagined, and the photo does only scant justice to its versatility.
The window is placed in the central atrium of the terminal. The rocking chairs can be used to contemplate the apron of the airport and to mull over the vicissitudes of historical tidbits.