UNDERPASS LAMP, Glendale

by Kevin Walsh

Here’s a variety of lamp in NYC getting increasingly rarer. Unfortunately I have no info on the brand, but these began appearing on underpasses in the 1970s when yellow sodium lamps began to proliferate. In most cases they replaced incandescent fixtures such as Westinghouse AK-10 “cuplights.” These lamps feature two lengthy filaments that shine in a mellower yellow light than the harsher sodiums.

There are still quite a few of these lurking about, like the ones shown here under the Long Island Rail Road overpass on Cooper Avenue in Glendale, but they will eventually be replaced by white Light Emitting Diode lamps which supposedly last longer and are therefore cheaper.

Check out the ForgottenBook, take a look at the gift shop, and as always, “comment…as you see fit.”

6/2/17

2 comments

William Mangahas June 4, 2017 - 12:37 pm

That would be a low pressure sodium vapor lamp that gives off an orange hue. Those LPS lamps are tubular in shape. There are multitudes of them on streets in the villages under the Town of Oyster Bay. Those fixtures were first installed in 1980 and those lamps last very long and consume less wattage than HPS lamps..

High pressure sodium vapor lamps give off a gold hue and are bulbs that screw into the sockets.

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Adam April 19, 2018 - 4:45 pm

And they’re not an eyesore like the Westinghouse “GE 100-Watt High Pressure Sodium Street Roadway Light Fixture Luminaire 100W HPS”
basically those.
NEMAS, old cuplights of the 50s, and the luminiaries used on most high-mast lighting, and low pressure sodium lamps > Westinghouse crap LMAO
PS, I used to live in NY BTW.

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