I was in Huntington Village on Long Island a few years ago to attend a book signing for Wayne Coffey’s “They Said It Couldn’t Be Done,” his account of the 1969 Miracle Mets team, at the late lamented Book Revue, with “Steady Eddie” Kranepool, the team’s first baseman, also in attendance. I couldn’t help but notice West Carver Street’s flock of Donald Deskey lampposts, including this one with an extra-long mast. This configuration is not seen in NYC, as there are longmasted Deskeys, but those masts are usually supported by a second one. The bases are marked “NYC 1973” and I would imagine Huntington Village acquired them from NYC DOT awhile back.
The Deskeys weren’t the only surprises I found in Huntington. In the center of town, Main Street and New York Avenue (NYS 110) you find four “olive” stoplight poles that support pedestrian crossing signals. Once employed on street corners in NYC by the hundreds, the “olives” disappeared like the passenger pigeon beginning in the 1980s.
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3/16/2023
1 comment
Very interesting to find them in Long Island! I remember when I went exploring along the LIRR’s Pt Washington Branch some few years ago, I was somewhere in Great Neck I think (can’t remember the exact location) when I found a bunch of them in a parking lot when passing by on the train.