I have often said that you can find all kinds of strange objects lurking beneath overpasses in NYC, and years ago I found one of the last extant Gumball lamps in New York City at Rockaway Freeway and Beach 95th Street, just south of the Cross Bay Bridge. A subway trestle clad in concrete runs over Rockaway Freeway that was constructed in 1942 when the LOng Island Rail Road eliminated grade crossings. After a fire on a bridge over Jamaica Bay destroyed part of it, NYC leased the railroad right of way and rebuilt the bridge, and by 1956 A trains were using it.
I call these fixtures “Gumballs” for their round shape; many other lamp aficionadoes also use the term. A number of manufacturers produced Gumball-shaped lamps and NYC employed one of these (I can’t pin down the actual manufacturer, but if you know it, let me know in Comments. This style was introduced around 1938-1939 and at one time battled Bells for hegemony on NYC streets until about 1950, when the Westinghouse AK-10 “cuplight” was introduced. All employed yellow-lamp incandescent bulbs.
By 1998 when I began Forgotten NY, precious few Gumballs were remaining. They can still be found in bulk in other locales (Toronto, Ontario still has hundreds, outfitted with LED bulbs) but in NYC, close to zip. The Brooklyn Bridge’s antique-look poles used them for decades until the early 1980s, when retro versions with sodium lamps replaced them.
On a recent jaunt I noticed this one, too, had disappeared, and I also noted that another one, which could be seen at Bay street at the Fort Wadsworth entrance, was gone too. And so I say, as I say so often…
Sick transit, Gloria!
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2/14/23