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Message |
    
NJGuy07052
Citizen
Username: Njguy07052
Post Number: 3
Registered: 3-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - 2:26 pm: | 
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I recently started taking the early train from South Orange. I drive to the station while it is still dark. I must say that the gas lights in South Orange add such charm and character to the town! What is the history in getting them installed? I haven't seen that anywhere else besides South Orange. It certainly makes the early commute to work that much nicer. |
singlemalt
Supporter
Username: Singlemalt
Post Number: 868
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - 2:32 pm: |
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They are also in Glen Ridge. I agree, they bring a lot of character to the town. |
Brett Weir
Citizen
Username: Brett_weir
Post Number: 590
Registered: 4-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - 3:03 pm: |
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NJ Guy- the history is actually in not having them replaced- many towns had gas lamps years ago but converted to electric. Up until the 70's (?) Public Service had "lamptenders" who walked every street and checked the lamps for damage, performed maintenance and changed the timers to coincide with the seasons. Eventually it became cheaper to just let them burn for 24 hours a day.
The drawback is that they don't provide nearly enough lighting for safety, as compared to neighboring towns. But they do have a singular charm and a historic touch. |
Lizziecat
Citizen
Username: Lizziecat
Post Number: 577
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - 3:16 pm: |
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I believe Cape May also has gas lights. When we first moved here there was a young man who walked around with a ladder, replacing mantles and generally servicing the lamps. Now Public Service takes care of the gas lamps. It's true that they're not as bright as electric lights, but just wait until there's a power outage. You'll be glad we have them. |
Bob K
Supporter
Username: Bobk
Post Number: 8096
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - 3:27 pm: |
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If you want to go way, way back (even before my time) there were lamplighters who walked the streets with short ladders and lit each light individually and then returned in the morning and doused them. There is a poem, pretty famous I think, about this called The Lamplighter or the Old Lamplighter. |
Daniel M. Jacobs, PP, AICP
Supporter
Username: Conrail
Post Number: 23
Registered: 1-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - 3:53 pm: |
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I have no idea if this is true, but I was told that until the 1970's a different utility company operated the gaslamps for SO and Glen Ridge. This company operated mechanical timers on the lamps that turned the lamps up at night and down during the day. This utility went bankrupt and was purchased by PSE&G. PSE&G was selling the natural gas to the towns for the gaslamps (previous to the early 1970s) and therefore had an incentive, when they purchased the other utility, to rip out the timers and sell the towns twice as much gas (for day and night) while also saving on the cost of maintaining the timers. According to this story (legend?), the federal government pressured PSE&G during the energy crisis in 1979 to replace the timers, but the utility refused, offering to install electric lamps instead.
Another legend: Many towns had gas lamps in the early 20th century, but SO and Glen Ridge also had zoning restrictions that forbade street-side above ground utilities (Manhattan has similar restrictions). Therefore, when the utilities wanted to convert to electric streetlamps, the cost of installing them with underground ductwork in these two towns would have been very high. So both towns were left with their gaslamps. |
kmk
Supporter
Username: Kmk
Post Number: 549
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - 4:26 pm: |
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Two bits of info...
You know what those brackets that poke out the sides of the lamp post are for? They are near the top. They are not for hanging baskets of flowers.
They are/were ladder rests. You take a straight ladder (not a step ladder) lean it against the pole, climb up and light it!
I also have done research and found it interesteing that although Thomas Edison was in West Orange the president of a giant utility company (I think it was gas) lived in South Orange. Maybe he managed to preserve the lamps for business reasons. |
Two Sense
Citizen
Username: Twosense
Post Number: 70
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - 4:31 pm: |
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In the mid-70's, an acquiantance's older, less socially responsible brother "borrowed" one of the gas light timers for personal use -- maybe before Radio Shack existed. Whether PSE&G hoodwinked the village to buy gas 24x7 is an interesting question, best left to conspiracy investigators.
On a marginally-related note, a water meter installer told me that 1) the telemetric system installed at great expense on village meters never worked correctly, which is why they've now installed at great cost radio frequency meters and 2) employees at the E.O. Water Commission's offices drink bottled water. |
Two Sense
Citizen
Username: Twosense
Post Number: 71
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - 4:33 pm: |
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There also are gas street lamps in Llewellyn Park, where Thomas Edison lived. Although, I thought he ran an electricity company, while cranking out thousands of inventions. |
Two Sense
Citizen
Username: Twosense
Post Number: 72
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - 5:27 pm: |
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How about a summer Gaslight Festival, featuring the 1940's noir thriller "Gaslight," to highlight the village "gaslighting" its residents with flickering downtown "Coming Soon" pledges?
From http://emanuellevy.com/article.php?articleID=27:
"After their honeymoon, Anton (Charles Boyer) sets out to drive his young cherubic wife (Ingrid Bergman) insane so that he can conveniently put her in an asylum and steal the precious jewels hidden in their house, where he had murdered her aunt Alice, a rich, renowned soprano. The title derives from the gas jet in Paula’s bedroom, which ominously dims whenever her husband turns on the gas lamp in the attic in his obsessive search through Alice's possessions. The flickering flames increase Paula's fear that her rational faculties are beginning to weaver."
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LibraryLady(ncjanow)
Supporter
Username: Librarylady
Post Number: 2400
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - 7:14 pm: |
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The story I heard is that both South Orange and Glen Ridge were pissed off that Edison chose West Orange for his lab that they declared that electric lights would just be a passing fancy and vowed never to convert from their gas lights. Don't know if it's true but it's a nice story. |
Bob K
Supporter
Username: Bobk
Post Number: 8100
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - 7:20 pm: |
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Commonsense would say the most likely scenario is that to get easements from hundreds of homeowners to run underground cables to the street would be prohibitevly expensive. Remember how tough it was to wire SO for cable TV.
However I like LLs story much better.  |
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