Molnár József - Szilas Péter: Night Lights - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1993)
Forty per cent of Budapest’s public lighting was destroyed during the war and the rest, too, was badly damaged. As a result of prompt repairs, it was on 12 May 1945 that Kossuth Lajos utca and Rákóczi út on the Pest side were illuminated by street lamps for the first time after the war, to be followed by the lighting of the Tunnel under Castle Hill in Buda. By 1949 the number of lamps had reached the pre-war figure. The maintenance of street lighting remained the responsibility of the recently nationalized Electricity Works, while the funds needed for the fulfilment of this task were to be provided, at that time as well as today, by the local representative bodies. In 1951, with the annexation of small towns around the capital, Greater Budapest was formed. Traffic became busier and thus the lighting of the major streets by old-fashioned bulbs was no longer satisfactory or cost efficient. The fibre bulbs had to be replaced with more up-to-date sources of light. What modernity meant at the beginning of the period was the fluorescent light, itself to be replaced later by the mercury arc tube. With fluorescent lights a three fold increase in brightness could be achieved in theory, and their life expectancy was three or four times longer than that of fibre bulbs. Their undeniable drawback was the fact that their installation necessitated new, custom-designed lamp units and, what is more, the replacement of the lamp standards. It was in 1957 that fluorescent lights were first operated on a normal day-to-day basis in József Attila utca, where lamp units containing four 65 watt strips were suspended above the middle of the road. The next two streets to be equipped with the same type of lamps were Kossuth Lajos utca and Rákóczi út. Besides the ones above the road axis, arched lamp posts were also erected following the new European trend, which allowed the cigar-shaped mountings to show up especially well. It was with such lamps that the Nagykörút or Great Boulevard was equipped in 1958-59. The pursuit of higher energy efficiency, smaller maintenance costs, and longer life expectancy were the factors behind the emergence and ascendancy of a new source of light, the mercury arc tube. With a size which was but a fraction of its predecessor the strip light, it easily fitted into old-fashioned lamp units. The mercury Back to normal after the war 38
