A golden oldie from 1999, here’s a Twin Type F lamppost on Sutton Square at the east end of East 58th Street at the East River. The base of this lamppost appeared in the classic poster for Woody Allen’s 1979 movie “Manhattan.” i had known about the pole for several years before I began shooting photos around town for Forgotten NY, but it was fortuitous that I acquired the shot (and I got some when it still held yellow and black Manhattan Street signs) because by 2000 it had gone, the Department of Transportation replacing it with a retro Bishop crook. At the end of this dead end stub of East 58th is another alley, Riverview Terrace, but it’s usually gated off. I should get over there again to see if there’s a fence I can shoot through.
The pole also had one of two remaining working “Junior Bell” incandescent lamp fixtures, an alternate version of the curved housing Bells. (Junior Bells, as you can see, had conical housing, not bell-shaped.) Both Type Fs and Juniors were deployed on side streets, though the Junior Bells found their way to some major streets as did the Type Fs.
This is one of two remaining Twin Type Fs I have photos of. The other one was a long way off, on the campus of SUNY Maritime College in Throgs Neck, Bronx. That one, too, has vanished. Twin Type Fs were used sparingly around town, but I’m aware that Linden Boulevard in Brooklyn had a population on its multilane section east of Kings Highway until the Swinging Sixties. In 1975 I was bicycling down Rockaway Boulevard in Brookville, Queens, and was surprised by a platoon of twin Type Fs on a stretch of roadway where lampposts were deliberately shorter so incoming planes wouldn’t mistake the road for a runway in foggy weather. At least that’s why I think short poles are in the vicinity of airports. Regretfully, I didn’t take my camera everywhere until the 1990s, and so didn’t record the spectacle, and that part of Rockaway Boulevard, a pedal to the metal straightaway, isn’t photographed much at all. There seem to be no extant photos of Rockaway Boulevard and its Type Fs.
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1/8/26
2 comments
Short poles for obstacle clearance based on one engine inoperative after liftoff from runway.
I believe the building on the left is 7 Sutton Square. I became interested in this house recently when it was shown, the exterior at least, in The Rialto Report because it was in a 1981 porn movie called A Girl’s Best Friend. It was painted white then, and the door facing 58th Street looks different from most of the various images I’ve seen in real estate sites. This article contains 3 photos of it. Don’t worry, there’s only one pornographic image, at the very end.
https://www.therialtoreport.com/2025/09/07/girls-best-friend/