The Westinghouse MO-8 once lit NYC streets by the hundreds or perhaps thousands from 1962 to 1972. Known as “open-bottom” or “cutoff” luminaires, they were designed to illuminate residential or side streets without a glass reflector bowl in a somewhat dim, greenish white glow. They were the counterparts to the Westy OV-25, which had a reflector bowl and were employed on main streets.
Throughout the 1960s, they battled for supremacy on NYC streets with the General Electric M-400 (diffused) and M-250 (cutoff) lamps.
Though their demise began as early as 1972, when yellow sodium lamps began their lengthy reign, examples were relatively frequent until 2009, when the NYC Department of Transportation installed new models of an updated GE M-400 on virtually every lamp in NYC. Today, only six years later, they are succumbing to the new light-emitting diode (LED) lamps, which shine a brilliant white.
6/2/15