When modern octagonal-shafted poles, which are made of aluminum and are usually silver or gray-painted, first started appearing in NYC streets in 1950, the mast of choice was curved with…

The Donald Deskey lamppost was introduced in 1958 at Broadway and Murray Street alongside City Hall Park, and was brought out as a standard NYC lamppost in 1962. It was…

The Type 6 Bishops Crook was used on streets with narrow sidewalks and narrow widths; the bases were quite a bit thinner than standard. There are about 3 complete or…

There’s a couple of ‘mystery poles’ in Manhattan, whose former use is hidden in the vicissitudes of time. Like this one on Broadway and West 142nd. It’s too far away…

This Type 24M bishop crook (among the first generation of such posts first installed before 1920) can be found in Spuyten Duyvil, Bronx, on the west side of Broadway near…

Over the years my pal Allen Dade has passed along several dozen images of the strange and varied lampposts found in the London area. I know next to nothing at…

Since I was hired to work in the Flatiron district in Manhattan in November 2011, I started sniffing around for places to eat lunch before actually beginning work. I will…

This Bishop Crook wall bracket lamp on Nassau Street near Beekman in the City Hall Park area is one of two remaining in New York City. The other one is…

It looks like the first lamppost produced by industrial design firm Thomas Phifer and Partners, the winner of the City Lights contest administered by the Museum of the City of…

1936-vintage lamppost at Tunnel Entrance Street at the Queens Midtown Tunnel in Murray Hill.  Somehow, the original fixtures, futuristic-looking in the 1930s, have survived. They seem to be precursors of…

Sorry for paraphrasing your classic, Marcel, but after NYC has now replaced virtually all its everyday lamppost luminaires (light bulbs and the hardware that houses them, for 95% of FNY readers who…

Allow me a litle FNY esoterica. (You can argue the whole website is esoterica but I would disagree with you). Over the past few years, the NYC Department of Transportation and…