Lamp Cleaner on the corner of 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue, 1940.

This cast iron, twin lamp post seen being worked on here was one of the original 1892-installed ornamental posts on Fifth Avenue between Washington Square and 59th Street, the first large-scale installation of decorative electric lighting in the city. The New York Times said this about the lamp posts:

"Fifth Avenue is to be lighted with handsome electric lamps.... The Edison Illuminating Company will furnish the light on an improved system, consisting of a new style of arc lights used on a low-tension circuit....Fifty cast-iron poles, 20 feet in height, and each carrying two electric lamps of about 1,000 candle power...will be ornamental in character, as will also the lamps, which will have artistic ground-glass globes and brass trimmings....The avenue is likely to present a very brilliant spectacle, as there will be 100 lights."

Though impressive they must not have provided enough light, because less than one year later 50 more posts were added to the mid blocks.Today this location has a contemporary post, but in 1997 more than 60 historic lamp posts of various sizes and shapes were landmarked. (About 100 historic lamp posts survive, but the balance not landmarked in 1997 are either within historic districts or on individually landmarked property.)

The building seen in the background is 500 Fifth Avenue, the 1931 Shreve, Lamb & Harmon Art Deco skyscraper.