Thursday, January 5, 2022 – BRIEF ISSUES WHILE WE ARE ON HOLIDAY
FROM THE ARCHIVES
THURSDAY, JANUARY 5, 2023
ISSUE 878
TIDBITS FROM
UNTAPPED NEW YORK
CENTRAL PARK’S
1,600 LAMP POSTS
SERVE AS
SECRET NAVIGATIONAL DEVICES
With approximately 40 million annual visitors, Central Park stands as the most visited urban park in the United States. Navigating its long, winding paths across 843 acres can expectedly get quite tricky—even for the most seasoned New Yorkers. If you ever find yourself lost in a sea of green, there’s a way to reorient yourself without having to rely on dubious data networks or Google Maps: just head to one of Central Park’s 1,600 lamp posts, which serve as unlikely navigational devices.
Also known as “luminaires,” Central Park’s decorative lamp posts feature plaques with four numbers embossed onto them. The first two indicate the closest cross street, and the last two numbers indicate which side of the park the lamp is closer to: even numbers, in this case, mean the east side, and odd numbers mean west. The last two digits also indicate location, with the numbers increasing as you move closer to the center of the park.
Newer lamppost navigational devices in Central Park
A lamp post with the number “6202,” for instance, translates to a location on the east side aligned with 62nd Street.
“The last two digits increase as one moves toward the center of the park,” explained writer Susan Merrit in Works That Work. This numerical system was originally designed to help park employees locate lamps in need of service or repair, but it’s has since become a useful tool for in-the-know park visitors.
TUESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
WILL RETURN SOON.
MONDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
WILL RETURN SOON.
Text by Judith Berdy
Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS
Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website
Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
UNTAPPED NEW YORK
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
Copyright © 2022 Roosevelt Island Historical Society, All rights reserved.Our mailing address is:
rooseveltislandhistory@gmail.com
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