Closing Bell: The Appeal of the Gas Lamp
Today a Wall Street Journal article waxes poetic about gas lamps most commonly found on Park Slope blocks. It’s true, “the lamps don’t actually illuminate very much aside from nearby garbage cans and planters, [they] typically run a homeowner a few hundred dollars a year in gas bills, pose environmental challenges and are difficult to…
Today a Wall Street Journal article waxes poetic about gas lamps most commonly found on Park Slope blocks. It’s true, “the lamps don’t actually illuminate very much aside from nearby garbage cans and planters, [they] typically run a homeowner a few hundred dollars a year in gas bills, pose environmental challenges and are difficult to maintain.” But there’s always curb appeal! Park Slope is one of the last neighborhoods with the gas infrastructure to support the lamps, and one broker says of of the brownstone, the iron work, and the street lamp: “It’s evocative.” What do you think, is it worth the hassle?
Burning Affection for Park Slope Gas Lamps [WSJ]
I’d settle for a gas lamp over an SUV, or a car in general.
They definitely look like something put up by Brooklyn Union 30 years to signify “gentrification.” If they’re not even replacing something original, they really have no reason to be there. They look hokey and cheap, and they’re a big f u to climate change.
What do you mean by “gas infrastructure”?? Almost all neighborhood have gas service… it’s not special gas that powers these lamps. If you have gas, err, gas service, then you can have a lamp. Just like you can have a hard-piped barbecue on your back porch and a gas oven in your kitchen.
aren’t there a whole bunch of gas street lamps still in operation along Poplar and/or Middagh St in the hts?
When I first moved to the Slope 25 years ago I tried to get a lot of people on my block to install the lamps – about half a dozen did so. I love the look & it isn’t a hassle. I was told about 5 years ago that it costs me roughly $70 a year – a single mantle lamp. Double mantle or open flame is going to be more.
http://savetheslope.blogspot.com/2010/10/blog-post.html
When I moved to brownstone Brooklyn in 1970 these gaslights, which were heavily promoted by Brooklyn Union Gas, were a mark of a neighborhood that was being revived. Real estate brokers used terms like “gas light district” in their ads.
I moved to PLG in 1974, about a year too late to take part in a mass (discounted) order of gaslights and never got around to having one installed. I still like them, although individual pole-mounted gas lights aren’t really appropriate in Historic Districts. Recently a few homeowners in the PLG Historic District actually received LPC violations for these gas lights but SFAIK these violations were dismissed when it was demonstrated that the gas lights were installed prior to the establishment of our HD in 1979.
I doubt that they cost anything close to a few hundred a year to use. I remember being told that they use about as much gas as the pilot lights on older gas stoves–a couple of dollars a month. I guess that’s for gas lights using incandescent mantels; perhaps ones with an open flame (which IMO look nicer, although they’re less bright and wouldn’t have been used in the late 19th Century) cost more to operate.
A few hundred dollars? Surely it can’t cost that much. Or can it?
And sheesh, next time get a picture of a GAS LAMP, not a gas lamp surrounded by buildings and garbage cans 🙂
A lot of these were put up by Brooklyn Union when they were trying to help revive “blighted” neighborhoods like Park Slope. Remember the Cinderella Projects? Someone should do a history.