The plastic covering is cracked, electrical wires are loose, and the sad pole this traffic signal is affixed to is crudely cemented to the pavement.
Clearly this two-red-light signal isn’t in good shape. But the more curious thing is how old-fashioned it looks. Could this seemingly forgotten piece of DOT infrastructure at the end of 93rd Street at Riverside Drive be the oldest traffic signal left in Manhattan?
Dating this light has been difficult. New York City didn’t get its first traffic signal until 1920—powered by a police officer sitting in a tall tower at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. (See the stylish postcard below.)
Later that decade, many major avenues had traffic lights as we know them today, but they only flashed red or green, according to Christopher Gray in a 2014 New York Times article.
I’ve seen a similar red light at dead ends; see the image of Sutton Square at 57th Street below. But that one has the lights arranged vertically, not horizontally. It’s also in much better shape—or at least it was when the photo was taken in 2019.
If the Riverside Drive traffic signal proves to be a relic of another New York, perhaps the DOT could call out its historical significance by spiffing it up—it should look as proud as the circa-1915 bronze Joan of Arc statue behind it.
See more relics on Riverside Drive, plus Gilded Age mansions and monuments, on Ephemeral New York’s Riverside Drive walking tour this Sunday, June 19 at 1 pm!
[Third image: Transpress NZ]
Tags: Historic Traffic Light New York City, Joan of Arc Statue Riverside Drive, Old Traffic Light Riverside Drive, Riverside drive history, Vintage Traffic Light New York City
Ephemeral New York 
June 16, 2022 at 12:22 pm |
A traffic light signal or just a signal light? I used to see these at dead ends of a street flashing sometimes, but not always, interchangeably on and off. They were always red on Staten Island when I used to live there in the 70’s.
June 16, 2022 at 2:13 pm |
I’m not sure I know the difference between a signal light and traffic light signal! I pass it by regularly and have always been curious about it, and a tour-goer on the Riverside Drive tour also thought it was a strange remnant. I’ve never seen another one like it in Manhattan.
June 16, 2022 at 7:24 pm |
This signal at Sutton Square is actually a NEW ONE!!! About six weeks ago, a construction truck backed into the original, vintage one, circa 1950s, and destroyed it. A fellow from NYCDOT replaced the crushed one with this one about three weeks ago.
June 17, 2022 at 1:42 am |
For street light geeks, many sites are out there. https://forgotten-ny.com/category/street-lamps/ is just one department in this exensive website. I knoiw there are more….
November 9, 2023 at 7:48 pm |
A friend of mine whom I know through the traffic signal collecting hobby recently put together one of these dual-red-lamp “dead end” lights, which are a strictly NYC thing, I think. The signal head you’ve found there is an LFE/Automatic brand from the late ’70s – ’80s. It originally had incandescent lamps, which were swapped out with plastic LED lamps in more recent years. Many of the standard vehicular signal heads in the city are Marbelite brand heads that go back to the ’50s. They don’t look much different than this one. You’d have to be a geek like me to be able to distinguish them.
November 11, 2023 at 10:52 pm |
Traffic signals like that one, with the lights arranged vertically rather than horizontally, still stand at some Brooklyn dead-end streets, particularly the ones that end at railroad tracks .
November 12, 2023 at 1:35 am |
This reminds me of two fond but distant memories of lamps. One were the beautiful orange lights on the Belt Parkway, I always wondered why they were replaced. Then there were the two-color traffic signals. Red and green. When it was going to change from green to red, both were lit for a few seconds, and then just the red. I have seen pictures of those who went the other way, red, red/green, green, but I never saw one of those in person.
November 12, 2023 at 7:52 am |
The original two-color signals from NYC are iconic. Before they implemented the simultaneous red and green, they used to have a dark phase between the green and red. The switch was done in the early ’50s, I think. There’s one on eBay now but the seller wants over $1100, which is probably too high.