This thick-shafted, guy wired traffic light at Fresh Pond Road and 59th Drive in Maspeth is just like thousands of others around town. But when these large stoplights first appeared in NYC in the 1950s, they carried a pair of WALK/DONT WALK signals, if that much.
This one has a lamp to illuminate the park at the top, a shaft that formerly held a fire alarm indicator lamp, a cobra neck lamp shaft, a “no turns” sign, a street sign affixed to the mast, and an extra mast that formerly held a sensor that measured traffic volume, as well as the WALK/DONT WALK signal, which ten years ago became the Hand and the Man for non-English readers.
6/17/13
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In the early days, when the mast-arm/guy wire set-up first began to spread throughout the city, actual traffic signals that served as pedestrian signals were also in use.
They were placed in the same general area as pedestrian signals are placed today, and they were common to see for a long time in various locations. Though many were removed and replaced with actual pedestrian signals within the last 20 years or so. Very few still remain.