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In random neighborhoods on the east and west sides, you'll see blocks of homes with small light poles in the front yard, black with a white plastic orb on top. The materials are about as basic as possible, but it looks decent at night.
Now my question is: why and how? Is this part of some citywide beautification effort? Does someone hook up block clubs with these poles at discount rates? Why this identical design all over the city in the most unexpected spots?
EXPLAIN!
Yes it was private businesses working with block clubs in the late 1970's. The neighborhood I grew up in has several blocks like this.
To be honest I don't find that fascinating in the least! :D
Weren't those part of a crime prevention plan?
I don't know if it's the same thing or not, but you'll find a lot of houses that converted gas lights to electric.
It was sold as being safer.
The area I lived in was built in the late 1940's well after gas lights were abandoned. The lights were never there prior and installed as part of a block-wide acceptance. They were not converted.
Exactly, it was that. Some were block club associations, some were Community Church associations. All were promoted by Law Enforcement. About that same time it was coupled with signs in the windows of a home that would denote a helping hand if one was in need of help.Quote:
Originally Posted by DetroitPlanner
It didn't spread far and wide. Only in areas with concerned folk and decent housing. It wasn't free.
Wow, DetroitPlanner. Your genius continues unabated. You wouldn't happen to know any of the companies involved in this scheme, would you? I'd love to track down a newspaper article on this subject [[you'd think someone wrote about it). It's one of those random bits of trivia that intrigue me.
Originally it was MichCon. [[notice the "con" in the name) later, Detroit Edison. I remember getting bills in the mail, and there was a colored, glossy, brochure in the envelope, touting the benefits of the lighting. BUT, besides the "safety" aspect, neighborhoods formed "Block Clubs" in an attempt to uplift and beautify their blocks, by buying and using these lights. It really did look neat @ the time. House after house, block after block, everyone had a globe light in front of it. Looked like people cared about their neighborhood. Detroit wasn't in as bad of shape as it is these days.Quote:
Originally Posted by nain rouge
I've actually wondered about this issue. So many identical [[but not very attractive) yard lights, and somewhat oddly placed in the center of yards - as opposed to by ealks or driveways
I was about 8 when this happened. I'm old; but I ain't that old! It has nothing to to with genius, it has to to with observing the built environment and being sedentary!Quote:
Originally Posted by nain rouge
As John Lennon crooned on Double Fantasy:
"I'm just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round, really love to watch them roll"
LJ Lawnlight was on McNichols near Greenfield, next to a vacuum cleaner repair shop, where they shared the building. Not sure if they're open any more, but they were happy to sell you a rebuilt transformer for 75 bucks after someone stuck a regular light bulb in the fixture instead of a 24 volt bulb, which they also sold for $8 apiece.
We had them install several "carriage type" fixtures, in front and back on different houses along Evergreen and in Minock park, as recently as 10 yrs ago.
I also remember this program. Those lights were ugly when installed. But any 1970s kitchen you see today also looks ugly. Times change. Tastes change.
I have no knowledge here, but it would be typical for Edison & the PD in concert to have simply chosen an attractive, fairly standard fixture from a large manufacturer and perhaps set a installation price. I assume Edison contributed to this, funded by the long-term revenue from electric consumption. Back then, Edison also gave away light bulbs to drive consumption. They also were an electric appliance retail store.
I forgot about that. I remember getting on a Detroit bus with my Dad, and taking a large brown paper grocery bag to the Edison outlet for the bulb exchange.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wesley Mouch
Good call, Honky Tonk.Quote:
Originally Posted by Honky Tonk
In our west side neighborhood, it was touted by MichCon. As I recall, ours had 4 individual plates of glass to form a rectangle so you could see the gas flame burning inside. It had some kind of wick that would occasionally get damaged and we would have to replace it.
You must have lived in a fancier hood than Franklin Park. All of ours were white globes atop a black stick!Quote:
Originally Posted by downtownguy
I love the neighborhoods that have these. During the holidays I've seen entire blocks wrap up the light globes in a tinted plastic, it was either a red or pink tint.
I think they are so tacky. If my block had a hope that everyone would have this glaring regimental look I would have been a black hole in the plan.
In the days before the energy crisis, I saw some installations that were gas and placed near the porch, not smack dab in the middle of a city lawn. THOSE were nicer. The flame flickered attractively and created a soft, yellow aura.
But glaring, electric bulbs [[usually high wattage) are just awful. Garish is a word created for the effect of the gauntlet of lawn lights.
That's why you don't see them in snootier neighborhoods.
Are you sure you grew up in Detroit???????? Sorry, black sticks, white globes. The "wick" was little mesh bag that filled with gas, slowly releasing the gas through the mesh. When lit, the little "bag" glowed. Coleman gas lanterns used a similar type wick.Quote:
Originally Posted by downtownguy
I grew up near Morang and Kelly in 48205 until the neighborhood started to get sketchy and we moved in the mid-80s. Our whole block had that light and it really did look cool when everyone had them on. It made Saratoga look like a walkable well-lit campus.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cincinnati_Kid
Them lights were the early version of "Target Hardening", a term used by Law enforcement. Now days it's cameras, motion detectors and alarms.
Boris the Burglar made his debut around that time.
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/i...gO5NdyOztyWthz
We had two of the balls[[albeit disconnected) and spray painted orange marking our property up north since I was a little kid and heard they came from our house in Detroit. Didn't even think twice about them until I moved back down here as and adult and realized it was part of a citywide movement. I actually think in some neighborhoods they look pretty good.
I believe he's talking about something that looked kind of like this [[although a bit plainer):Quote:
Originally Posted by Honky Tonk
http://www.easylivingsystems.com/gas...ual_burner.jpg
A lot of houses in nicer neighborhoods in Detroit had these gas lamps on their lawns back when I was growing up in the '60s, including my family's house and my grandparents' house. They were short [[about 6 ft. tall? - I was little...) and sold by Michigan Consolidated Gas as something that would make your house look classy and would light up the darkness between the sidewalk and your house, thus making your home safer.
We would play kickball and football and other games in our yard, and if you hit one of these lamps with the ball the gas "mantles" [[round hanging wicks) would often break, occasioning much grumbling from the neighborhood dads. I believe MichCon stopped servicing them sometime in the early '70s and they began to fade away.
But local businesses and neighborhood and block clubs, looking to enhance neighborhood safety and cohesion, prevailed upon MichCon to start installing gas lawn lamps again for group purchases in larger numbers. Soon, the gas company bowed out again and electric fixtures replaced the gas ones. The new fixtures installed were of the globe variety, and a lot of the older gas fixtures with the square tops were replaced with the globes.
Wow, that's fascinating that they were using gas lamps in the 60's. Coleman didn't actually produce production yard lamp lights in the 60's. They also never used a design similar to those. I've never seen anything like that from that era. Interesting. I'm assuming it was from a local company.
Here is what I believe is an early 70s shot of an Indian Village house with exactly the type of lamp I was trying to describe in front of it:
http://dlxs.lib.wayne.edu/cgi/i/imag...y=1;view=image
Yes, the "carriage house," old lamp-lighter style lamps. They produced an engaging soft historic light -but gas became too dear to rationalize.
The orbs on sticks with electric bulbs were poor copies, essentially bulbs on a stick in front yards, glaring away.
Quote:
Originally Posted by EastsideAl
Well, that's why I was unfamiliar with them, we didn't have those in Delray. Some IV homes still have a kind of carriage-light looking fixtures on the section of lawn, between the sidewalk and the curb. Few of those are still functional.
That is the type of lamp I was describing that we had in front of our house. Apparently, they put them in some modest neighborhoods, too. We lived near Schoolcraft and Greenfield.Quote:
Originally Posted by EastsideAl
Mr Grandmont #III fancy-lad! ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by downtownguy
Nope. East side of Greenfield.Quote:
Originally Posted by DetroitPlanner
Ohh Grandmont #II! even a fancier lad!Quote:
Originally Posted by downtownguy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3X8istCTeQE
Yes, I think they were sold to people all over the area who had reasonably sized front lawns. Relatives of mine who lived in the Jefferson-Chalmers area, up around Chandler Park Dr., and in the "cabbage patch" section of Grosse Pointe Park all had them.Quote:
Originally Posted by downtownguy
It's funny that I was just thinking about these old lights, because I actually saw one still standing [[though non-operational) on the lawn of the neighbor of a friend of mine up in the area across Six Mile from Marygrove College.
You're talking about these:Quote:
Originally Posted by Honky Tonk
http://dlxs.lib.wayne.edu/cgi/i/imag...y=2;view=image
They were sold to IV homeowners in the early '70s as an aesthetic "historic" enhancement [[never mind the fact that Indian Village wasn't old enough to have had gas lighting originally). The big deal was that part of the price went to benefit the Indian Village Association.
When sold, buyers were told that Michigan Consolidated Gas would to maintain them forever, but after only a few years MichCon stopped servicing them, much to the dismay of the IVA. Nasty letters were written and lawsuits were threatened, but it turned out that MichCon had some sort of escape clause in the contracts. For several years thereafter a couple of old guys in the neighborhood would service them for a little extra cash. But, after many years the parts became tough to find, and so, as you note, they're pretty much non-functional now.
Dems be the ones. I was in IV last night attending a function. As I drove home I kept an eye on them. The ones that worked, did give off a certain charm, aesthetically, but they didn't do much to provide secuity-type lighting. As far as "MichCon having some sort of escape clause", REALLY!?!?! :)Quote:
Originally Posted by EastsideAl
What happened? Not wasting gas happened. Natural gas prices soared after the 1974 Oil Crisis because NG became the best alternative to heat a house but there were low reserves then: "America had controlled the price of natural gas since the 1950s, and
with the inflation of the 1970s, the market price of natural gas was not
encouraging the search for new reserves.[40] America's natural gas reserves dwindled from 237 trillion in 1974 to 203 trillion[clarification needed] in 1978, and the price controls were not changed despite President Gerald Ford's repeated requests to Congress.[40"
Here ya go - the globe is right in front of the door:
https://maps.google.com/?ll=42.41533...190.68,,0,2.14
DP, did you ever get north of Fullerton? The east side of Greenfield was much more modest than west. While I can't say for sure if Grandmont was in the legal description of our lot, the common reference to the Grandmont neighborhood was farther west. In fact, many folks would say the first streets west of Greenfield were St. Mary's of Redford neighborhood. Grandmont was more like the "suburb" of Rosedale Park.Quote:
Originally Posted by DetroitPlanner
Turns out, Google street view shows the old house with the gas light still standing. That's the mansion I grew up in behind it.
Attachment 22826
EastsideAl, as you can see, we didn't have a particularly big lawn, either.