In a residential section of North Los Angeles, a pair of guy-wired telephone pole masts with incandescent lamps survived until early 2014 at Kittridge Street and Radford Avenue (above)…
… as well as Kittridge Street and Ben Avenue (above).
Both lamps were finally replaced with brilliant white LED lamps in the spring of 2014.
LA has held on to several older lamppost designs long after they were replaced elsewhere, but the LED revolution, now underway in New York City, will probably doom any stragglers.
I also picked up his screen grab from a few blocks away on St. Clair Avenue. LA has retained some 1940s blocky navy blue and white street signs.
LA would be fascinating to walk around and survey the varied street furniture (and for me, at least, the palm trees, which to my eastern eyes are quite weird) but as the Missing Persons told us in the 1980s…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OawzGzUrZmo
…nobody walks in LA.
Hat tip for Glen Norman.
12/23/14
3 comments
Thanks for the shout-out, Kevin! Looks like you found them dayburning, too.
This Staten Island boy move to LA a few years ago, and he walks around LA all the time. It’s surprisingly walkable in many areas, especially Downtown, Los Feliz/Silver Lake, Echo Park and other areas accessible to the Metro subway/bus system. And there are quite a few of those 1940s-1960s blue enamel street signs around town (about 40% in my estimate). Since there’s no snow or salt, and very few damp days out here, the street furniture lasts quite a long time because there’s no rust.
As for street lamps, there are literally dozens of 1920s double lamps Downtown in excellent condition, and an entire collection of similar lamps at the LA County Art Museum (see below). Not to mention rows of untouched buildings/theatres from the same era that are being renovated. All this came as a big surprise to me, since New Yorkers are taught that nothing existed in LA prior to the freeways, which is hardly the case. Lots to see on my walking excursions.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-siRBAa0DvPM/TbojTLlGKdI/AAAAAAAABl0/_f_yeUm3-zM/s1600/Chanel+030.JPG
Hi, Kevin – As someone who lived in West Lost Angeles for a couple of years, your comment made me smile. Even Santa himself couldn’t walk all the streets in LA! lol It’s so different from NYC where we walk everywhere or take a bus or taxi or subway; Los Angelenos use their cars even to a store 2 blocks away! By the way, if you want to see something really unsettling, do a search for “saguaro snow” to see images of giant cacti in the Tucson area covered by one of our rare snowfalls. Feliz navidad, Renée