Historical Society Fights to Save Old Lampposts : Glendale Replacing Ornate Fixtures With Modern, Efficient, ‘Characterless’ Lights

When the City of Glendale replaced old-fashioned cast-iron lampposts along Colorado Street with sleek 40-foot-high aluminium poles and bright sodium lights, it created “one of the least-attractive streets in Glendale,” according to the Glendale Historical Society.

In a report submitted to the City Council, the society charged that the installation of new light standards throughout the city is destroying the “character of neighborhoods and historical districts.” The society is demanding the city stop removing the ornate old posts.

But so far the city has rebuffed the preservationists except for ordering that a study be conducted by the Public Service Department.

Stored as Junk

Glendale is piling up decorative columns and Gothic lanterns as junk at a storage yard at a time other cities are going to great expense to restore such lamps as a way to beautify neighborhoods.

The controversy was spurred by a five-year street-light modernization program authorized by the City Council in 1982. About 650 ornate antique street lamps lining major streets throughout the city are being replaced with modern, efficient sodium vapor “shoe-box lights.”

The city is replacing old fixtures--double-globed Gothic lamps atop fluted concrete or cast-iron poles--on Glendale Avenue south of Broadway and expects to complete the citywide project by the end of next year, said Jerry Milota, city power line supervisor. Only about 250 of the ornate double-globe lamps remain on main thoroughfares.

Milota said modern lights are four times brighter than the antiquated models, improve traffic safety and use only about half as much energy. He said the Glendale Avenue project alone will save the city $10,000 annually in energy costs.

‘Inappropriate Scale’

Besides, Milota said, bright lights mounted 40 feet high, rather than 18 feet, illuminate a larger area, requiring far fewer lights, which lowers maintenance and fuel costs.

However, the historical society’s report criticized city officials for being insensitive to the character of neighborhoods and for failing to research alternative lighting systems more thoroughly. It also charged that bright lights placed high on poles create an “inappropriate scale” with buildings in older areas.

Steve Preston of Glendale, chairman of the society’s Preservation Task Force, said the stark illumination emitted by towering lights along Colorado Street “promotes a barren, uninhabitable streetscape” which he says will contribute in the long run to further physical deterioration and increased crime.

Preston, a planner for the City of La Verne, said Glendale is getting rid of its traditional old street lights just when many other cities are bringing them back. He said sodium vapor fixtures can be easily added onto existing lampposts and that new replicas of antique lights are almost as efficient as their sleek, modern-design cousins.

‘Gas-Lamp Look’

Gary Keller, president of an Orange County firm that manufactures replicas of antique street lights, said there is a growing trend among cities to replace modern, sterile-appearing lighting fixtures with turn-of-the century reproductions.

“People prefer the gas-lamp look,” Keller said. “It’s romantic, nostalgic and represents an era of fine craftsmanship. Until a few years ago, the major stumbling block was that they were just not as efficient as modern lighting. But, with new technology, that’s no longer true. We are seeing more and more cities tear out lighting they installed in the 1950s and 1960s and put back in what they had in the 1900s.

William Paul Ogilvie, a street light dealer in Brea, said antique street lights removed by one city frequently are purchased by another city seeking to restore the original appearance of areas now being renovated.

A spokesman for the Glendale purchasing department, which handles the sale of used city equipment, said a number of cast-iron and concrete-column street lights removed several years ago were sold for about $125 each to the city of Anchorage, Alaska.

Decorator Items

The city also has sold street lights to antique dealers who restore them as decorator items for private estates and commercial properties. Glendale hasn’t sold any in the past two years but is accumulating them at a storage yard. The historical society has asked the council to block any sale of antique posts.

Ogilvie said dealers and cities frequently pay $200 to $300 each for antique lighting standards in good condition. A Solvang firm specializing in antique lamps sells restored single-globe Gothic lights--similar to the double-globe lights on major Glendale thoroughfares--for $1,400 each.

Keller, the Orange County manufacturer, said reproductions of antique lights cost $1,300 to$1,500, depending on style, contrasted with $700 to $800 for a modern “cobra head” street light. Despite the lower cost of high-overhead lights, Keller said his company, Western Lighting Standards of Fountain Valley, had almost tripled its sales of ornate lights to cities over the last five years. He said that manufacturing of decorative lamps, which almost disappeared 20 years ago, is reemerging.

The historical society points out that the City of Alhambra, which replaced its ornamental standards in the Main Street business district with gooseneck-style mercury vapor lights only five years ago, now is replacing those lights with restored and replicated originals very similar to the ornamental stock being removed from Glendale streets.

Higher Lighting Levels

W. E. Cameron, Glendale city public service director, said the city had studied the feasibility of converting old lights to high-pressure sodium but found that such conversions “provided only 25% of the light required on major thoroughfares.” He maintains that higher lighting levels are required to reduce the city’s liability for accidents and injuries.

The society denies that, saying there is no case history sufficient to establish liability based on light levels.

The society is recommending that the 18-foot-high double-globe antique lights be retained on main thoroughfares around the Civic Center, on Broadway near Brand Boulevard, the Adams Square and Adams Hill area near Chevy Chase Drive, Kenneth Road Village between Grandview Avenue and Sonora Avenue, on North Pacific Avenue between Glenoaks Boulevard and Glenwood Road, on North Central Avenue between Stocker Street and Randolph Street and at the entrance to Forest Lawn Memorial Park on Glendale Avenue.

The society also is recommending that the city preserve the remaining smaller, single-globes in residential areas, or, when necessary, replace them with similarly designed replicas. Lights in residential areas are mounted on short, fluted poles of cast iron or concrete and have a single, opaque globe.

Society Disputes Memo

Cameron said the city is converting about 1,700 of those neighborhood antique lights to sodium power whenever possible. However, the lamps are being replaced with modern fixtures in areas where greater light is needed or when lights are damaged or knocked down.

According to the historical society, a 1981 memo from the public service staff to the city manager reported that new cast-iron standards to replace poles that are knocked down “are not readily available through any company for replacement.”

However, the society found that there are many such companies. The society report chastises the city, saying “it appears” the range and cost of light standards available “were not fully explored by staff.”