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PrintStreetlights shine bright in midtown Tulsa
Thanks to a grassroots effort, four midtown neighborhoods now have new streetlights with the feel of old Tulsa.
In midtown Tulsa between Lewis and Harvard avenues, 29th and 30th streets intertwine. At the junction, a single street lamp marks the anomaly, serving as a welcome for everyone to see.
“You look at the light at any time of the day and it has a presence,” resident John Hawkins says.
The bright addition is a result of a grassroots effort, which began about a year ago, to replace aging streetlights around midtown.
The lamp is something old and something new, along with 16 others already installed in the housing additions of Woody Crest, Forest Hills, Terwilleger Heights and Maple Ridge. Detail for detail, the new lamps are replicas — minus the exchange of a glass bulb for a more durable polycarbonate bulb — of the lamps originally installed in Tulsa during the early 1900s.
Records show that prior to 1930, Union Metal of Canton, Ohio, supplied 645 poles to the Tulsa area. Beginning in April 2008, Union Metal started its second project with Tulsa, replacing a lamp at the Harwelden Mansion on Main Street with a new cast-iron powder-coated bronze lamp matching the originals, says Joel Yost, nostalgia sales for Union Metals.
“We were established in 1906, so Union Metal was able to provide the poles just like the ones we provided 100 years ago,” Yost says. “We’re the only ones still doing it just as it was done before. Every detail.”
With few original poles left and those remaining showing the damage of age, the replacement lamps were typically different and less ornate, explains Peter Walter, a longtime resident of the midtown area who helped organize the neighbors’ efforts.
Individual donations ranging from $50 to $10,000 came from neighborhood residents. Then AEP-PSO special-ordered the lamps from Union Metals and crews installed them.
“The cost of each project is directly related to the labor required,” says Tracy Ballard Freeman, customer design engineering, AEP-PSO.
Generally, each lamp costs approximately $4,400, using above-ground wiring. The funds neighborhoods raised have covered the costs, with the exception of four lamps replaced with money from the Vision 2025 initiative, Freeman says.
“When you think about the number of blocks around town and the space between each lamp, that’s a lot of people getting to enjoy it,” Hawkins says. “I never thought a lamppost would be so much fun.”
At present, the grassroots effort from neighbors has raised enough funds to replace 18 lamps, with more expected.
Lamp locations
East 30th Street and South Utica Avenue
East 30th Street and South Zunis Avenue
Forest Boulevard and South Victor Avenue (large island)
East 29th Street and South Atlanta Place
East 26th Street and South Terwilleger Boulevard
East 27th Street and South Victor Avenue
Woodward and Hazel boulevards
Woodward Boulevard and South Owasso Avenue
East 27th Street and South Yorktown Avenue
East 30th Street and South Birmingham Place
