Several years ago, a couple of dozen electrically-powered gaslamps were installed along the block bounded by Poplar, Henry, Hicks and Old Fulton Streets in Brooklyn Heights. A few have been removed, but most of them still burn brightly. This batch of gaslamps is largely a mystery– if someone knows the secret behind their origin, fill me in.
Of course, gaslamps once lined most of NYC’s existing streets before electric lamps first started to appear in 1892 or so. Some of NYC’s curbside gaslamp posts hung in there well into the 1970s; today, only two remain, at Broadway and West 211th (even that may have been a mere signpost, which employed the same base and shaft as the gaslamps) and in Patchin Place, a Greenwich Village cul-de-sac. That post is now connected to an electric wire.
However, electrically-powered gaslamps can still be glimpsed in front yards and entrances around town. This Poplar Street group, though, are the only curbside set.
3/26/15