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The 3rd
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| In 1955, dark, dank and cavernous 3rd Avenue (the Manhattan section anyway), was rescued from the shadows of the ancient elevated transit line that had rumbled over it since 1871. 3rd Avenue emerged into the sunlight for the first time in 84 years, but had much recuperating to do. The long dark decades had left it an infested slum, for virtually its entire stretch of nearly 200 blocks. It didn't take long for this prime piece of real estate to stage one of the most glorious comebacks of any road on earth. One symbol of it's rising granduer were it's shining, new, fluorescent streetlights. |
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They were a celebration of the avenue's new freedom, from the yoke of the old el. These bright, blazing fluorescent fixtures didn't cower at the corners, like the meek little Bishop crook cast iron poles did. They boldly declared, "THIS IS 3RD AVENUE, BABY! DIG IT!". They pointed straight into the sky and 3rd Avenue's architecture soon followed their lead. Today, much of 3rd Avenue, from midtown, through the upper east side, is a breathtaking canyon of high rise buildings. |
| In the mid 50's, these fixtures must've looked awesome, to a city still dominated, by little incandescent cup, bell & gumball lights. Like Detroit's post war cars and 3rd Avenue's new buildings, they were bigger and better. They made 3rd Avenue special, made it sparkle and certainly were the Royalty of Roadlighting in NYC, through the 60's. |
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The city also installed them on 9th Avenue, in rundown Hells Kitchen and Chelsea. I suppose the city had hopes of inspiring a renaissance on that west side thoroughfare. Like 3rd, 9th Avenue had also emerged from the killing shadows of a grimy el, just before World War II. There would be no rebound for 9th. Unfortunately, the proud, erect fluorescent tubes couldn't perform more than one miracle. On 9th Avenue, they looked toward the sky, not to inspire their surroundings, but to avoid seeing them. They also failed to have any appreciable effect on lower 3rd Avenue, The Bowery, which remained a skid row and, if such a thing was possible, even declined further as a neighborhood. They stood their ground as the Bowery wound it's way through Chinatown, into Chatham Square. |
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These mighty symbols of New York's post war prosperity followed the whole course of the old el, down to the Park Row-Brooklyn Bridge- City Hall plaza. Perhaps a fickle city blamed these heroic luminaires for the failures of continuing slums, like 9th Avenue and the Bowery, overlooking their electrifying effect on upper 3rd. Heroes are often hung out to dry here. In the 70's, the Doubtful & Dummy sodiums teamed up with the demonic Quarterloops, to eradicate the abandoned and demoralized Tubes, hanging perilously to their poles on badly rusting hinges. |
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The Tubes put up more of a fight on slummy 9th Avenue. Perhaps
they developed a streetfighters attitude, having spent over 20
years on that mean street. Nonetheless, they did not survive long
into the 80's there. Park Row was their last stand, and the same
merciless reconstruction of the Brooklyn Bridge approaches, that
saw the wholesale massacre of so many cheerful
Silverliners & Whitestone poles, also claimed the last
of these. The "Bigger" that the Tubes represented, was
no longer considered "Better". The policies that allowed
the grandeur of 3rd Avenue and big, bright, juice-hungry fixtures,
was no longer in vogue. Small was in, with little gnat-like, low-cost
luminaires. One last refuge for the Tubes may be in North Bergen,
New Jersey, where I believe they still grace one of that town's
main avenues. |