  Two closeups of the venerable old castron bell luminaires,
with their cuplight-type diffuser bowls. They were the main fixture
on freestanding poles in the 40's. They were contemporaries of
the older gumballs.The cuplights began to supplant them in the postwar years. I don't think bells ever appeared on utility pole masts. They were also rarely on major highways, although they didn't shy away from major secondary roads and did have a presense on the Belt Pkwy. The Bells emerged from an older style fixture, shaped like an old fashioned telephone handset, with a big round globe-like diffuser. Their smaller diffuser, hidden from birdseye sky views, were probably designed with possible air-raid blackouts in mind. There was actually a 2nd version of the old Bells, also known as "Mission Bells", A smaller, more cone-shaped Bell, known as Junior in an old Welsbach manual. The only surviving example we know of is in the northwest Bronx, on a disintigrating castiron longarm pole at Mosholu Ave and Post, a block west of Broadway. |