Since the Corvington Longarm Type 24M — and other old forms such as the bishop crook and Type F lights — were reintroduced to NYC streets beginning in the 1980s, the Department of Transportation has granted them a great amount of flexibility, taking them where they never went before, such as producing twin versions of the Corvington and bishop crook lamps.
I am a purist, and recoil at such developments.
The most egregious example has been the DOT’s willingness to take Corvington, bishop crook and Type F tops and jam them onto the thick, guy-wired stoplights that have been part of the landscape since the 1950s. It is the worst example of a forced alliance since PT Barnum acquired a mummified monkey whose torso had had a fishtail sewn onto it, calling it the Feejee Mermaid. That was an insult to mermaids everywhere.
12/25/12