Remember When: Antique Street Lights Were Originals

If you’re even marginally observant, I’m sure you’ve noticed that Sheepshead Bay Road and Emmons Avenue (and, now, Kings Highway) are lined with large, black antique-style street lamps. Note the “-style,” since they’re not actually antiques, but replicas installed about a decade ago to beautify the roadway. The originals can be seen in the photo above, taken in 1959 (and up for grabs on eBay).

Of course, unlike the street lamps, there are a lot of things in this photo that are still around. Or at least their shells are. The building that once housed the theater (anyone know the name of it?) is now Bally’s, and almost all the buildings in the foreground are still the buildings that line the road today. They just happen to be filled with sushi and cell phone shops, which, I’m sure, really would’ve bugged people out in 1959.

In fact, let’s do a side-by-side comparison, courtesy of Google Maps, of Sheepshead Bay Road (before the new monstrosity at 1733 Sheepshead Bay Road) and see just how little it has changed.

One thing of note is just how much wider Sheepshead Bay Road looked back then. We’re not sure if it’s that it’s that it has no parked cars, or if the sidewalks have been widened, or the road straightened out a bit, or… whatever. We just don’t know. Trick of the lens, perhaps? One thing is for sure: I wish it were still that uncongested. That’d be pretty sweet.