Turn Down the Streetlights
Years ago, I called the local electric and streetlight utility, Seattle City Light, to ask why the block around the corner was lit up like a sleep-deprivation torture cell. Then as now, seven high-powered LED lights, plus two on facing corners, blazed away—more than twice the usual allotment in this hilltop neighborhood of close-packed bungalows less than three miles from downtown Seattle.
He surely didn’t realize that less than 200 feet away was another block with no streetlights at all—one of 16 blocks within half a mile that missed out on, or escaped, the street lighting considered obligatory elsewhere. When the blocks were developed, in the early 1900s, a resident told me, the builders opted to hide the utility wires that ordinarily clutter urban streets by running them down the alleys. So the city, which makes utility poles do double duty as streetlight bases, set lights midblock in the alleys, but not on the streets.
The result is one of Seattle’s best-kept secrets. When I asked City Light’s longtime public-affairs chief if there were any other unlit streets in the city, he insisted that there were none anywhere, not even in these 16 blocks. He then called back, after checking, to correct that.
