The Uplifting Loopy Quarterloop Uplift Mast Arms
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The world was a fairly predictable place prior to
my 6th year. Every day I went to school and every day I returned
home to Booth Street in Rego Park, Queens, New York City. My block on Booth Street never changed. Then one day I returned home from kindergarten, and there they were...where only that morning, as I left for school, my old familiar tapered elliptical "crook arm" masted incandescent Westinghouse "cuplight" street lights still held sway... The infamous Quarter Loops streetlight arms and their evil partners in crime, the "Disgusted" (GE M400) mercury vapor fluorescent fixtures. |
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![]() The irony is that I was not usually averse to new things, but I was hostile to unusual things and asymetrical things. The crookarms were usual. They were everywhere when I was little. A new, shiny crookarm pole would be a welcome new thing. The still uncommon loop was unwelcome. It made my block wierd, in a crookarm world. I might face discrimination someday, for being a Loopian. |
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![]() Some background on these mastarms was provided me by an early StreetlightSite
contributor, Sanders Saltzman. It is from the 1963 handbook put
out by the Welsbach Corporation for it's field crews. Welsbach at the time was the primary servicer of street lights in New York City and for all I know might still be as I update this in 2018. One type of this
arm was intended for use with the Type 8S (Welsbach designation)
20 foot hex lighting standards. Although the q-loops would later hang on 25 foot poles,
it appears they were originally intended to supplant the tapered
ellipticals on the shorter light poles. |