THE BROADWAY ROSE
The Broadway Rose is one of the “original” LA Streetlights. Manufactured originally by the Keystone Iron & Steel Works, this highly ornate dual-bulb electrolier was installed for the first time in 1919, running the length of Broadway in downtown Los Angeles - the first street in LA to get ornamental lights.
The streetlight was so popular with the local population that later in the 1920s, additional models were placed on other streets downtown. But as in so many things, the newer models had minor stylistic variances. And in 1948, many of the originals were replaced with updated models.
Nowadays, you’ll find only a few original Broadway Roses downtown, mostly around the corner of Sixth and Hope Street, right next to the LA Public Library’s main building. And even these are rapidly going the way of the dinosaur - many of these that need repair are Frankensteined together with parts from the more common Metropolitan Double.
West Hollywood art-deco one-bulb - santa monica blvd.
Black and white doesn’t do this streetlight justice - in real life, it’s bright blue. It runs the length of Santa Monica Blvd. all the way from La Brea Ave to Doheny Ave - the entire length of West Hollywood, which is a separate city that exists entirely within the boundaries of the city of Los Angeles.
One single globe housing - flanked on four sides by perfect semi-circle housings and surrounded by two rings - sits atop a smaller globe (itself flanked by four pieces of the steel housing), all of which sits atop a stepped pole and base. Colored a bright blue, it’s a distinctive feature. Santa Monica Blvd. runs miles from Silver Lake all the way to the Pacific Ocean - but when you see this streetlight, you know exactly what part of town you are in.
I was unable to find much info on this particular model in any of the easily-accessed records. Because West Hollywood is a separate entity entirely from the city of Los Angeles, it’s possible that their municipal upgrades have been either overlooked or not as thoroughly researched by people who are interested in the Los Angeles Street Light scene. I’m sure the info is out there, I just haven’t come across it yet.
the jonathan gold special
The Grand Central Market in downtown Los Angeles is a fixture, a public market with dozens of stalls - grocers, butchers, restaurants, etc. Outside of the southeast entrance, you’ll see two of these streetlights - painted gold from top to bottom and featuring an almost Hitchcock-esque profile of a man in a pork pie hat.
Jonathan Gold was a food writer and restaurant critic for several decades here in Los Angeles. But he was so, so much more. His approach to food was cultural and community oriented. You’d see him at the highest of “fine dining” restaurants; you’d see him getting a taco from a street vendor. To him, food was the thing that could bring communities together, and build bridges between disparate communities.
His writing was always kind and insightful - he won a Pulitzer for it. Many of the restaurants in Los Angeles that are now considered institutions credit their success to his championing of their work.
Jonathan Gold passed away in 2018. When he did, the entire city of Los Angeles, from City Hall to LAX and many buildings in between, lit up gold in his honor. Los Angeles is a large, international city, and in the twenty-five years I’ve been living here, the only other time it’s ever publicly mourned someone like this was the loss of Kobe Bryant. That’s how important Jonathan Gold was to the city of Los Angeles.
Here he’s flanked by one of his five quintessential “Rules for Dining in L.A.”
