Streetlights Sit Unused For 15 Years

32 antique-style poles installed in downtown LA in 1990 as part of a beautification project are finally turned on.

1 minute read

June 5, 2005, 7:00 AM PDT

Downtown's business group annually bestows roses and lemons "to the downtown area's best and worst development projects. The unlighted streetlights won a lemon.

...Transportation officials spent $250,000 to install the poles and new sidewalk curbstones and street-side trees in 1990 to compensate for three years of neighborhood upheaval caused by construction of the underground 7th Street station that serves the Blue Line light-rail line and Red Line subway.

But the lights never got turned on. And over the next 15 years the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission, which had commissioned the decorative lamps, morphed into the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. City Hall administrations came and went. Private property along the lamps' layout changed hands."

Thanks to Mindy Oliver

FULL STORY: Bright Idea Finally Shines in L.A.

Saturday, June 4, 2005 in The Los Angeles Times

Community / Economic Development California

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