The History of Street Lamps in Los Angeles

As you drive down Wilshire Boulevard at night, a few miles from downtown Los Angeles, you’ll notice a certain ambiance. The old standards, those tall, stately pillars of cast iron that once served as neighborhood emblems, invite a focused kind of looking. They still beckon us toward them like heraldic coats of arms, even if the meanings they used to represent have long since been forgotten.

As the City of Los Angeles modernized and grew in size around the turn of the last century, there was a shift in street lighting. Whereas before gas lights were scattered across the city, there were now electric ones—though even those weren’t always reliable. They could blow out at any moment, especially with gusts of wind. But when the first electric lamps hit the streets, “it was a major milestone,” says historian Mary Mandelkern.

It was also a practical one, as the advent of electricity meant fewer lampposts needed to be erected and the electrical system would be more manageable. By 1916, the City became responsible for delivering municipal power to the street lights, and that same year it began approving new designs for lampposts.

Then there was the era of the “Special,” installed in 1920s and ’30s along an expanding urban grid. A swath of the old Wilshire Boulevard still features those imposing Specials, with their bronze lanterns bracketed by partially nude women or curvy mythological creatures. Westwood Village has a few surviving Bishop’s Crook Specials, and a bit of motorized flanerie will reveal more of the stately two-lamp electroliers on older streets or tucked into more residential neighborhoods.

But there was a problem with the Specials, which the City’s Bureau of Street Lighting described in 1935: “A large proportion of the lamps are being damaged by vandalism and the heavy traffic is not helping.” And that was before streetlights went electric, and a backlog of requests for installation or repair had begun to build up.

The switch to electric lighting was “a big break,” says Los Angeles City Councilmember Mitch Englander, who as a boy would hang out with his father on their downtown lamppost patrol, and later served on the Board of Public Works. The lights are now a lot more efficient, but they’re still a good place to spot the remnants of an old LA.

Today, the front entrance of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art — better known as LACMA — basks in the glow of 202 historic streetlamps clustered together for the museum’s Urban Light. The installation, which turns 10 this week, was conceived by artist Chris Burden, and has become a familiar symbol of the city’s culture. The bulbs were recently changed to LEDs, a move that has saved 90% in energy costs. But the change was about more than saving money. It was a chance to honor the memory of the man who dreamed up the sculpture. He died this week at 88, and his legacy will live on in the form of the City’s most popular piece of public art.