Matt Weinstock

Jan. 24, 1958

There are about 110,000 streetlights in the city of Los Angeles. Keeping them lighted is quite a chore.

The Department of Water and Power has 23 two-man crews assigned to service and maintenance. Last month they replaced 15,800 damaged or burned-out globes.

The lamps are regularly washed inside and out, a job requiring the steady attention of 15 men. Know where the globes get the dirtiest the fastest? On Hollywood Freeway outbound, just beyond Hollywood Bowl. Diesels chugging up the grade are believed the cause. It was on this stretch, by the way, that a WP serviceman was killed recently when an out-of-control truck knocked him from a ladder.

All this service is provided at an average of 5 cents a day to taxpayers, including replacements and maintenance. It is generally accepted that good street lighting is cheap insurance against accidents and burglaries.

When a light standard is knocked down, the replacement is made by the Board of Public Works' Street Lighting Department, not WP. The board also makes the original installation and pays the original cost, WP takes over the rest.

Some persons expect a great deal for their 5 cents a day. One indignant lady berated an emergency crew for not being there when the light went out. She didn't like waiting in the dark. That's quite an order, with about 500 globes to replace nightly throughout the city's spread-out 455 square miles.

BY NOW it must be obvious to regular readers that all this is leading to a question raised here by Julie Byrne. When she reported the light in front of her home broken, a crew came and replaced the outer globe. When darkness came, however, it didn't go on. But around 10 p.m. another crew came and put in a new bulb. Why, asked Julie.

Well, WP procedure is for the daytime crew, replacing an outer globe, to leave the inner bulb intact if it isn't broken. It isn't feasible to turn on a whole string of lights to test one lamp. At night, when the circuit goes on and the lamp stays dark, another crew replaces the bulb. Experience has proved this seemingly duplicated service is cheaper than arbitrarily replacing every bulb. That's that the WP man said.

But let us look to the brighter side--a view of Los Angeles at night from a plane. With its 110,000 streetlights and colored neon, it's an immense, incomparable, breathtaking jewel.

A BOY NAMED Roland, 9, returned to Cedars of Lebanon clinic a few days ago to have several stitches removed from his forearms--a quick, painless process.

Nevertheless, Roland was obviously scared and dreaded the "ordeal." As the nurse made ready, he looked around furtively, then began removing his belt from around his waist. Whenthe nurse asked what he was doing he replied grimly, "I got to have something to bite down on."

Been seeing too many bullet-between-the-teeth sequences on TV westerns.

BIG ITEM on the agenda at the meeting of the L.A. County Locksmiths Assn. Tuesday was the counting of votes for the new officers. But, irony of ironies, the custodian of the ballot box had lost his key. Fortunately, someone had a set of picks and got it open, disclosing that Morey Gold of East L.A. had been reelected president, Bill Myers of Compton and Lou Merritt of Temple City veepees.

AT RANDOM -- George Vaughan of Hawthorne can hardly wait for the first TV western with villainous, sneering Ku Kluxers trying to take advantage of poor Indians ... A U.S. mail truck was coming out of Calvary Cemetery on Whittier Boulevard as Paul Grimes passed. Couldn't decide whether it was picking up or delivering dead letters ... Very provocative article, "Let Your Kids Alone," by Robert Paul Smith in Life. Contends youngsters today are victims of too much planning and supervision.