THOUGH I do a lot of history in Forgotten New York, it’s ultimately a site about infrastructure…I have been taking a keen interest in things like stoplights and lampposts since I was five years old and a wholesale changing of the guard from castiron to aluminum was going on in NYC street lighting. It was a revolution of sorts and I was there to see it all.
In western Queens, I’ve noticed that standard poles have begin to take on new roles. I noticed this standard at Woodside Avenue and 59th Street in front of Pizza Boy II, where the “pedestrian control” stoplight as well as the control box for the intersection’s stoplights are mounted on an octagonal pole usually reserved for 20-foot tall (shorter under elevated trains). I’ve never seen this particular configuration previously; the walk/don’t walk boxes are usually placed on shorter, cylindrical S-1 poles (see below). The “octas” have been around since 1950 and are the default for streetlamps, be they straight masts or “cobra necks.”
Though the S-1s usually carry stoplights or pedestrian control boxes, this one on 2nd Street in Hunters Point has to content itself with carrying a one-way sign; usually that task is conferred to green poles drilled with holes that allow the DOT to mount as many signs on them as is necessary. My thinking is that the DOT planned to install ped-boxes here, but has yet to do so; the area has been newly built-up over the past decade.
The ever evolving state of NYC infrastructure…
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10/17/22