NYC's Last Gaslight Lamppost

Of the thousands of gaslight streetlamps that once illuminate the streets of New York City, only two remain. This gas lamppost in northern Manhattan in Inwood is only a couple feet from the crosswalk and was repurposed by the mid-1920s to hold the street sign. The other survivor is on Patchin Place in Greenwich Village. The Inwood lamppost consists of a cast-iron post with a fluted base now holds no signs and stands between a trash can and a newspaper box. The two lampposts, plus 60 slightly newer cast iron electric light poles and 4 wall bracket lamps, were designated New York City Landmarks in 1997.

The Common Council of New York ordered shopkeepers to place a light in their window facing the street in 1697; they later changed the requirement to every seventh building. The first attempt at city-operated lighting was a tax in 1762 to install oil lamps, purchase oil, and pay for watchmen to attend the lamps. Baltimore became the first city in America to install gas streetlights in 1817. In 1823 the New York Gas Light Company was formed; the company was granted exclusive rights for the next 30 years to lay cast iron gas pipes in the streets of New York south of Grand Street. The company's president, Samuel Leggett, owned the first house in the city to be lit by gas, at 7 Cherry Street in Lower Manhattan. Pipelines to deliver gas to northern Manhattan took longer to be built. The Manhattan Gas Light Company was incorporated in 1830 to supply the area north of Grand Street.

The gaslight post on Broadway at W. 211th Street is New York City post No. 85. The other surviving gaslamp, in Greenwich Village at the end of Pachin Place (an alley off of W. 10th Street), has been wired for electricity (New York City post no. 44). Both gaslamps are thought to date from the mid-nineteenth century. The manufacturer of these two posts is unknown, but a gas lamppost that no longer survives had the words "M.J. Drummond, 192 Broadway, N.Y." cast into it. They are thought to date to around 1860, when the standard design was a fluted base and shaft eight feet tall, topped by a short horizontal bar, with an eight-paned polygonal lantern.

New York City's first electric streetlights were installed on Broadway in 1880. The replacement of gas lighting with electric lighting was gradual, and many different styles of cast iron poles, some with decorative brackets and crooks, were installed. The historic gas and electric lampposts desgnated New York City Landmarks are located in Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens. The light poles are under the jurisdiction of the New York City Department of Transportation. Most of the city's earlier, cast-iron lampposts were replaced in the 1950s and 1960s with modern steel and aluminum poles. Some of the surviving historic lampposts have been preserved due to the efforts of a group called the Friends of Cast-Iron Architecture.

Everything old is new again, so they say. Real gaslights were installed at Broadway and Barclay Street near City Hall in 1999.

Cottle, Sarah. An Early History of Lighting in NYC, Milrose Consultants. May 20th 2017. Accessed November 23rd 2021. https://www.milrose.com/insights/an-early-history-of-lighting-in-nyc.

New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. Historic Street Lampposts, Boroughs of the Bronx. Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens, Designation List 282. LP-1961. New York, NY. New York City, 1997.

Thompson, Cole. Inwood by Gaslight: A Relic of a Bygone Era, My Inwood. December 14th 2015. Accessed November 23rd 2021. https://myinwood.net/inwood-by-gaslight-a-relic-of-a-bygone-era/.

TodayInSci. City Gas Lighting in New York; from Cradle Days of New York (1909), Today in Science History. Accessed November 23rd 2021. https://todayinsci.com/Events/Technology/GasLightingNewYork.htm.

Walsh, Kevin. Fonville, Gary. Kadinsky, Sergey. The Last Gaslight, Forgotten New York. December 2nd 1998. Accessed November 23rd 2021. https://forgotten-ny.com/1998/12/the-last-gaslight/.