What's the deal with Lower Manhattan streetlights?

Having read about the city's new street lights and even the ones that didn't make the cut, I finally got around to taking the pictures to accompany asking the question, what's the deal with the street lights down here?

We have a bunch of these stubs with no lights. Are they waiting for some new design competition? Are they waiting for new technology or legislation to install WiFi in the street lights? Surely with all of the grant money down here they have enough for street lights.


Right around the time they opened the Borders Books on Broadway they put these straight lights in. No graceful arch, no decorative curve. Lipstick lights. You can see in the background that the same base that works for the lights also works for traffic lights.

And we have a few of these around too. It's hard to see, but right in the center of this photo is a long PVC-looking pole. What the heck is it? will it eventually be a streetlight? In some places, they're right next to actual street lights. Are they some kind of antennea?

And more recently (I think, but it may be that I just never noticed) we got these Jiffy-Pop lights. They remind me of old fashioned bed warmers that would be heated and slid under the covers of a bed in the winter. What they really look like is the collections baskets they use at church, which is funny considering their proximity to Trinity Church.

What's really amazing is that all of these photos, a veritable street light safari, were taken within a block of each other.