Brooklyn once had a cast-iron lamppost design to call its very own.
Lamps that looked like this, known as the Old Edison Post No. 4, once dominated the downtown Brooklyn and northern Park Slope area until supplanted by the more common Corvington and bishop crook stylings. They especially held forth under elevated trains such as the now-vanished 5th avenue El, which ran down Flatbush and 5th Avenues.
My memories of young childhood are, as you would expect, characterized by lampposts. One day when I was about 5 or 6, I was riding in the B63 bus down 5th Avenue (accompanied by my mother or father, of course) and I spotted what in my mind was a very strange lamppost design. I filed it away in my memory and can still reference it. I now realize that it was one of the last surviving Old Edison Posts, in 1963 or 1964.
Not only that, Brooklyn also had a short-armed version (the cognate to the Type F perhaps) used on side streets or in this case trolley turnarounds. Note the “German helmet” treatment on the shaft.
Spring City Electrical Manufacturing Co., based in Pennsylvania, produces the molds for the retro castiron lamps that have been installed in NYC for the past 30 years or so. It would be terrific if they could make a mold based on these posts for use in Brooklyn — so the borough can get its own decorative posts again!
As always, “comment as you see fit.” kevinjudewalsh@gmail.com
1/8/17