Steve, immediately post-bombing an expert in urban lighting provided a pro-bono study and lighting recommendation for the then-formative Automobile Alley district. I might be mistaken, but I recall that he was from the northwest, perhaps Portland. The study MAY have been a site visit paid for by the Oklahoma Main Street Center, but it may also have been commissioned by the planning department. Either way, he was described as perhaps the leading expert in the field.

He made a number of recommendations, but the ones that stuck with me most had to do with promoting ambient lighting, shielding light sources and other ways to put light effectively and attractively onto the cityscape itself rather than directly into the eyes of the users of the streets and sidewalks.

Although the 1999 streetscape of Automobile Alley was beautiful, it ignored some of those recommendations, specifically by installing the acorn lighting that exists today. My understanding is that happened partly because of the limitations of OG&E’s catalog of approved fixtures at the time. While the white-hued metal halide source used is far more attractive than the more common yellowish sodium, I still have always felt the glare detracts from the overall beauty of the district at night. Those retro acorn light fixtures have now been repurposed in other places, including Midtown.

My question is: could the light recommendations that he made in the late ’90s be dug up and repurposed for this exercise? I know technology has changed, but surely the basic pricinples of great lighting have not…

http://www.darksky.org/