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Nostalgia
“Our builders have largely dedicated themselves to turning back the clock . . . Let's kill off the present! Bang, bang!”

Critic Herbert Muschamp, 2001
 Cobra-head and teardrop luminaries

Cobra-head and teardrop luminaires

Courtesy New York City Department of Transportation

Chicken&Egg Public Projects

 New York City was once the symbol of urban modernity. Its skyscrapers and water, power, and transportation systems were models to the world. Recently, a number of neighborhoods have rejected their city's role as engineering design leader.

The gas-lit streets of New York became electric beginning in the 1880s. The age of the cast-iron lamppost ended in the 1930s. Later, steel models with sleek curves and “cobra-head” luminaires became standard. Recently, hundreds of “bishop's crook” reproduction lampposts have appeared. The historical copies stand near contemporary fixtures, creating flea-market clutter in the streetscape.

Few New Yorkers would enjoy Olde New York's quality of life. Cobblestones, horse-drawn carriages, and manure are long gone. Why resurrect the lampposts? Perhaps some people yearn for the past—a simpler past that never existed. The present is always complicated. Nostalgia, however, is a force so strong that it can substitute yesterday's infrastructure for the challenge of designing for tomorrow.

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