Headline: ST.
LOUIS NATIVE'S EFFORT ENSURES "OLD" LIGHT WILL SHINE ON
Reporter: By Gregory Freeman
Publication: ST.
LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Last Printed: Tue., Feb. 8, 2000
Section: METRO, Page: B1, Edition: FIVE STAR LIFT
Barry Williams
jokes that he must have been dropped on his head as a child.
While
other kids were taking an interest in baseball and fishing and other simple
pleasures of childhood, young Barry was interested in other things. Like streetscapes.
And phone booths. And street lights.
"I
don't know why, " said Williams, who grew up in the city's West End. "I
just always took an interest in such things."
That lifelong
interest has now been manifested at Forest Park.
Thanks to Williams' efforts, the park is now being outfitted with
new "old" street lights. Longtime St. Louisans will recognize the
lights, which have been installed along the park's Pagoda Circle. The lights
are replicas of the old, sandy-brown "granitoid" street lights that
dotted the city's landscape from the late 1920s through the late 1960s. The
lights were topped with a glass acorn globe, and were unique to St. Louis.
In the late '60s,
then-Mayor Alfonso J. Cervantes removed nearly all 50,000 of the old light fixtures
in an upgrading campaign, designed to promote safety in the city. The lights
were replaced with "cobrahead" lights, that were taller and brighter
than their predecessors.
Once
removed, most of the old fixtures were dumped along the Mississippi River for
erosion control.
All the while, Williams retained his interest in streetscapes. As an adult, he'd moved to Washington, and in 1992, he helped found the American Streetscape Society, made up of people who take an interest in urban areas.
When he returned
to St. Louis two years ago, he saw a story in the Post-Dispatch about the Forest
Park master plan. He immediately thought about the lights.
He
learned that plans were being made to install new lights that he found to be
run-of-the-mill. "There was nothing distinctive about them, nothing that
said anything about St. Louis, " he said.
Williams
contacted Forest Park manager Anabeth Calkins and Daniel J. McGuire, the park's
director, and encouraged them to consider use of the old lights, especially
since technology can make the lights much brighter than they were originally.
Officials
liked the idea and took it to the park's steering committee, which recommended
it.
But most of the
original lights were in the river and had deteriorated so much they couldn't
be used.
When
the Rouse Co. redeveloped Union Station in the 1980s, officials there looked
at old photos of the station and saw the granitoid lights. Learning that they
were no longer available, Rouse had ordered 20-foot-tall molds of the lights,
which are now located outside the station.
But
those molds were too tall for Forest Park.
Park officials
ordered 17- and 13-foot molds of the lights, some with a new twist: twin globes.
The lights are now up at the Pagoda Circle and will replace cobrahead lights
at Lagoon Drive and along the Forest Park Expressway.
"There
aren't funds to change every cobra light in the park, " said McGuire. "But
we'll make more of the changes if the funding is available and appropriate."
Meanwhile,
when he learned about the granitoid lights, Robert Archibald, president of the
Missouri Historical Society, insisted that the cobrahead lights around the History
Museum and in its parking lots be replaced as well. "There's no reason
to have metal tubes screwed into sockets -- the cobraheads -- when we can have
the granitoid lights, " he said. "Our environment affects how we feel
about our city. We ought to pick things that are attractive rather than things
that are ugly."
Now that the park
has signed on, Williams isn't done. He's become a Johnny Appleseed of sorts,
spreading the word of granitoid lights into other neighborhoods.
"The
lights give St. Louis a special touch, " said Williams. "I'm glad
to be involved in it."
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