The History of Exterior Lighting

Ancient street lighting

• Street lighting was minimal, to say the least, in ancient and classical times. At the height of Empire, Roman streets were not lit, even though horse and wagon traffic banned during daylight was permitted at night. Other ancient cities did better. In the 4th century, the Sophist philosopher Libanius wrote about his hometown, Antioch, a Greek city near the current Syria/Turkey border. Libanius said that the lights of his city had "shaken off the tyranny of sleep" and surpassed "the illumination of the Egyptians." In 5th century Ephesus, a Greek city on the west coast of Anatolia (Turkey), Arcadius Street was ablaze with 50 lights.

Lanterns

• London was the first lit medieval city. In 1417, the mayor ordered lanterns with wax lights hung in the streets between Oct. 31 and Feb. 2. With the War of the Roses too close to home in 1460, security measures included lanterns hung outside every residence. Rumors of war with Spain in 1598 prompted orders for lanterns hung every night, gates guarded and streets blocked with chains. In 1679, the mayor complained to aldermen that citizens were not hanging lanterns according to "ancient usage and acts of council."

Gas

• In the 4th century BCE, the streets of Beijing, China, were lit by natural gas piped through bamboo. In 1807, Pall Mall's half-mile run though central London was the first modern street lit by manufactured coal gas. In 1817, Baltimore became the first town in America to be lighted by gas, as officials inaugurated one lamp at the corner of Market and Lemon. A year later, 28 lamps lit up the town. Baltimore lamps were open flame until the lamp mantle was marketed in 1896. The last gas-lit American city, San Francisco, phased out her final lamps in 1930, but some parts of London are still lit by gas.

Gay White Way

• In 1878, arc lamps were installed on Broadway between 14th and 26th Streets in New York. Arc lamps were electricity arced between carbon electrodes in a gas-filled chamber, too bright and too dangerous for indoor use. Street lighting launched a day-and-night culture of theater and dining on the street nicknamed "The Gay White Way." On Oct. 16, 1889, the New York Times reported an injunction had shut down the arc lights, and darkened New York appeared in mourning for its lost brilliance. The city quickly reconditioned gas lamps, but Printing House Square (Times Square) already had Edison incandescent lights.

Incandescent

• Shortly after Thomas Edison developed his incandescent bulb in 1879, he lit the streets of Menlo Park, New Jersey, near his research facility. Early incandescents were too weak to replace arc lamps in the street. By 1918, larger incandescent bulbs were used with a prismatic reflector to provide a controlled light distribution. Civic leagues and business associations recognized that ornamental "white way" lighting arrays increased commercial traffic. The United States census of electrical industries reported a decline in arc lights after 1902, as incandescent lighting increased and became the standard.