IT’S been donkey’s years since I’ve done an in-depth look at the lamps I call The Williamsburgs, or The Willies for short. They are colored blue (no other NYC lamppost is blue) and has fluted, indented poles and simplied iron scrollwork at the top, echoic of more elaborate scrolled predecessors. Here I’m showing one of the original New Gumballs that came with the poles; these featured yellow sodium Holophane lamps. In many cases, the “holos” now appear without the round Gumball fixture, and in other cases, flat LED fixtures have been installed. They are found along Lee Avenue and Roebling Street north of Division Avenue in the heart of Williamsburg.
These lamps are now a good 50 years old, if you can believe it. I first recall seeing them on van rides from my high school in Clinton Hill to a now-vanished bowling alley in Greenpoint, and the van’s route sometimes took us up Roebling though we usuallly used Kent Avenue, franklin Street and Greenpoint Avenue.
One of these weekends I’ll do a comprehensive page on The Willies.
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4/24/24
1 comment
That light bulb near the cross arm must give extra light?