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Cybele at blogging.la has posted an item there (with pictures) on the display of old Los Angeles street lamps planted in the shopping center parking lot at the corner of Vermont and Santa Monica. They were installed as street art by the city in 1992. Looking at the photos, the array doesn't seem to include a Wilshire Special, which is too bad. They were mammoth things with a giant rectangular light box, adorned at each corner with a stylized female figure. Custom made of bronze, they lined the boulevard from Park View Avenue to Fairfax, all 393 of them switched on by the mayor while bands played at a ceremonial unveiling in 1928. If you like that kind of thing, survivors can still be found on many blocks of Wilshire between the Harbor Freeway and MacArthur Park.
Thanks for all the additional info, Joseph. I went back and looked at my other photos and did not find the Wilshire Special (before seeing your note). The funny thing is that for many weeks I walked past the Bureau of Street Lighting yard and looked longingly through the fence, wishing I could see all those bits and pieces up close. Little did I realize at the time that just up the block they were all set up for public consumption.
Posted by: cybele at April 15, 2004 02:32 PMGreat info, Joseph. Thanks, and wish I'd seen that photo before. A Wilshire Special was recently on display in the Neon Museum downtown, but the exhibit has been removed.
Posted by: Kevin Roderick at April 15, 2004 03:15 PMI was at the Staples in that corner strip mall today when I noticed the row of lamps. I started writing about it and then figured I'd look around to see if anyone else already had. Voila! What a magnificent installation, thanks for the history and photo.
Posted by: Kitty Bukkake at July 29, 2004 06:56 PM
of LA Observed
No, the installation doesn't include a Wilshire Special. Here's the Wilshire Special, btw. As I recall, there was only one available that wasn't in use, and that one's in the Street Lighting's makeshift museum (which still needs a home).
"Vermonica"--that's what the installation is called--was a nice project (Sheila Klein was the artist), and we'll miss that kind of thing when Hahn disembowels Cultural Affairs. It is meant to do precisely what cybele and what you did by referencing it: not so much function as a beautiful stand-alone installation, but call attention to the value of the ornate in the fixtures in our town.
The project was funded in large part by an arts fee incurred by a Bureau of Street Lighting development. Without arts administrators who can stand independent of other City Departments pushing for these things, you won't get these kinds of projects anymore.
Footnote: Barbara Goldstein, the public arts director who pushed this project through, now is the manager of the Seattle public arts commission; the artist Sheila Klein now lives in Washington state.
Posted by: joseph at April 15, 2004 02:13 PM