15th STREET DAVIT POSTS

by Kevin Walsh

Following a tip about ‘ugly, futurisic’ lampposts appearing on the 9th Avenue and West 14th Street area, I found instead on West 15th a small clutch of the new davit-style lampposts of which the Department of Transportation is becoming increasingly proud. By definition, a davit-style post is one in which the shaft curves out to hold the luminaire, instead of it being mounted on a separate mast attached to the shaft.

 

Of course in NYC, a key feature of any lamppost is being able to be mounted on NYC’s guy-wired stoplight sets, which were first introduced in the mid-1950s and are getting greater use than ever. Also note the extra-large reflective street signs.

 

Davit posts of this type have been in use in NYC for between five and ten years. So far, they have been installed on the near-complete lengths of East-West Houston Street and Columbia Street in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn. Here, the davits have been paired with “Stad” luminaires, as shown ion the DOT streetlighting manual.

 

On West 15th, the DOT has also installed what may be the next generation of ‘no parking’ signs that use the Frutiger type font, replacing the old Highway Gothic signs.

 

The feature on West 15th between 9th and 10th I’m really interested in is the arch-windowed footbridge that runs from Chelsea Market, originally the National Biscuit Company (Nabisco) factory to the building across the street. The High Line railroad trestle, newly minted as a public park, is seen in the background.

If anyone has details about the footbridge, please notate them in Comments.

 

Like the Chelsea Market, the old Port of New York Commerce Building/Union Inland Terminal #1, 111 8th Avenue, fills the entire block between West 15th and 16th.

Google’s tentacles reached Chelsea in 2008, when the tech giant’s offices were opened on the 2nd and 4th floors here.

3/18/13

 

3 comments

Jerry March 18, 2013 - 12:40 pm

As a boy growing up in Brooklyn in the 1960s, I was always fascinated by 111 8th Avenue the few times we drove into the city. (Not sure why we’d end up there, except on the way to the Lincoln Tunnel to go to New Jersey.) It seemed huge and stolid, with a kind of magisterial permanence. And it had, I believe, the numbers 111 huge on the Eighth Avenue side. Now–Google and Starbucks. I remember it white or tan, too–was that blasted off to reveal brick?

Reply
Josh March 18, 2013 - 11:31 pm

They also have these types of posts, painted black and all, eastbound on the Pelham Parkway express lanes in the Bronx. They are between Boston Rd and Stillwell Ave.

Reply
Someone March 22, 2013 - 3:26 pm

The ones on Houston Street are slightly different, they don’t have the dome on top.

Reply

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