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& Whitestones Streetlite Nuts  |
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 West Side Hwy twinlamper, with 60's era mercury cuplights. |
As discussed on earlier pages, the bridges and early highways
built in NYC, all had their own distinctive lampposts. The 1920-30's
era parkways had their Woodies. The new bridges however, led
by the great godfather of their generation, The Triboro Bridge,
were not meant to look bucolic. They were meant to look Empirical. Actually, the West Side Highway was NYC's pioneer, non-parkway arterial. It's roughhewn looking lampposts were intended to look like the newly built Empire State Building. Unfortuately, the highway looked uglier than most elevated railways, no easy feat to accomplish. The Triboro received more polished and graceful lampposts. Also designed to evoke the awesome Empire State, they closely matched the Triboro towers. |
| These poles were installed on the major approaches built at the time to connect to the Triboro. They graced what would become the northern end of the Brooklyn Queens Expwy. & western extension of the Grand Central in Queens. They were placed on newly widened Bruckner Blvd. and the forerunner section of the future Major Deegan Expwy. in the Bronx. They also graced the East River Drive approach to the Triboro from Midtown Manhattan, the Henry Hudson Bridge and the Marine Park Bridge, between Brooklyn and the Rockaways. |
 Triboro twinlamper, shown with original Acorn-like pendant lights. |
 Bruckner twinlamper, shown with Mission Bell lights, survived into the mid 60's. |
The grand plan was for Bruckner Blvd. to become an expressway, possibly explaining why, despite it being a secondary road, it got the Triboros instead of the typical castirons relegated to such roads. It's status as a main bridge approach probably has much to do with it. The same went for the southern terminus of the Grand Concourse, which fed into the nascent Major Deegan. No other secondary roads would get them. |
| The Whitestone Bridge, which opened three years after the Triboro, sported a leaner, plainer successor lamppost to the Triboros. | |
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The pretense of resembling the Empire State was relegated
to the pole's tip, above the mast. The pole itself was just a
plain, cylindrical pole until that point. The Whitestones took over as the pole de riguer on the new expressways, from the opening of the Whitestone on, through the early 50's building of the Van Wyck. |
 Whitestone twinlamper, shown with original Gumball lights. |
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They lit up the southern extension of Manhattan's East River
Drive, the new vehicular lanes placed on the venerable Brooklyn
and Queensboro Bridges, the controversial Gowanus Parkway in
Brooklyn, which was later incorporated into the Brooklyn Queens
Expwy, which also had the 'Stones, south of the old section built
to serve the Triboro. Not normally associated with the parkways, they were also on the Bronx end of the Henry Hudson Pkwy. Since the old Gowanus was clearly demarcated by it's builder for later incorporation into a high volume expressway, the decision to use Stones instead of the usual Woodie parkway poles can be understood. Less understandable is their presence on the Henry. It's possible that Robert Moses, who coordinated all these projects, planned on converting the bucolic, but confined, Henry Hudson Pkwy and Bridge, into a truck laden expressway, directly feeding into his planned Interstate 478 complex via the West Side Hwy, since destroyed. The Stones could also be found on LaGuardia Airport ramps and the Pulaski Bridge, a short span connecting McGuiness Blvd, in Brooklyn, to 21st Street in Queens, across the noxious Newtown Creek. |
 Whitestone twinlamper, with cuplights.  Twin Elliptical mast crookarms with cuplights |
They appear on Long Island, on Nassau County's Altantic Beach
Bridge and the Robert Moses Causeway, far out in Suffolk County. My earliest memories of them were with the cuplights, which were original issue on the Van Wyck Expwy, which my family used often. They were apparently intended to grace the Cross Bronx Expwy., which was being constructed after the Van Wyck. My memory is hazy, but I believe they were on the disjointed eastern stretch of the CB that didn't get finished until the 70's. The sections completed from the late 50's on, had poles with elliptical crookarms and incandescent cuplights. The Stones would not appear again on new roadway except for the 2nd Moses Causeway span in the 60's. |
 Both
the Tribes and 'Stones made it into the mercury vapor era, but
not without losses. Both lost their masts in favor of Quarterloops,
on the BQE in the 60's and the Van Wyck and Queensboro Bridge
approach ramps in the early 70's. The southern tip of the BQE,
winding toward the Belt Pkwy, kept it's Whitestone mastarms and
it's incandescents into the 80's. Both poles put up a fight,
that their castiron colleagues on the side streets could never
do.The Tribes adapted Westinghouse Silverliner vapor fixtures on the Triboro and Marine Park Bridges and the Grand Central approach to the Triboro. |
 Whitestone Twin with M400's |
The Whitestone Bridge 'Stones kept their masts while adapting to GE's Disgusted M400's. The 'Stones on the Queensboros upper deck, Brooklyn Bridge and East River Drive kept their masts with Silverliners. |
 Sometime
around the 80's, the Triboro and Whitestone Bridges both adopted
long tubed sodium fixtures, like the Thomas Betts LPS. I always assumed that the tubes were installed to help in foggy weather. The long term survival of the Tribes and Stones on their respective bridges is virtually assured now. It's wondering what luminaires they'll next wear that is likely to be their only problem. If the nearby Throgs Neck Bridge offers any glimpse into the future, little cutoff fixtures, like the TB113, may be about to evict the LPS tubes. The careful eye will notice a handful of green Stones, still with cuplights, on a ramp into LaGuardia Airport. Thank heavens for the stingy Port Authority. Mini Stones with working cuplights still adorn the Henry Hudson Pkwy's 235th St. walkbridge. Tribes still grace the Henry's namesake bridge. |
© 1996, Jeff Saltzman.