Molnár József - Szilas Péter: Night Lights - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1993)
Although the concessions given by the city council to the Budapest General Electric Co. for the provision of electric power for public use gave the green light to the use of electricity in public lighting in 1893, the opportunity was not immediately seized. The high costs of electric lighting made the replacement of kerosene lamps seem superfluous to contemporary perception. The councillors continued to urge that Andrássy út and other major streets should be lit. In 1908, however, it was, surprisingly, none other than the engineering department that questioned the feasibility of installation and refused to support the project because of the high costs they anticipated. They did so in face of the fact that the offer submitted promised to provide a brightness equalling the light of 114,600 candles in place of the existing 21,016 candle-power, albeit at a cost approximately 100 per cent higher. The development of the capital city was, however, increasingly hindered by the lack of proper public lighting. The appropriate illumination of its streets was an essential condition for Budapest-as for any other city in the world-to attain the status of metropolis. That was how the issue was raised at the meeting of the Municipal Board. The suppliers of electric power were also growing weary of the procrastination around the introduction of electric lighting, as they had been standing by fully prepared for the task for a long time. Thus in 1909, the Budapest General Electric Co. offered to install electric lighting to the section of Rákóczi út between Múzeum körút and Erzsébet körút at the company’s own expense. That offer would have been hard to reject, and thus, on 8 April 1909, 38 test lamps were put into operation in the above-mentioned stretch of Rákóczi út. The 37 volt, Siemens-made arc lamps, mounted on 9-metre posts, provided lighting of 8 lux brightness. The lamps, which were operated from a 110 volt, DC network, were switched on and off by walking lamplighters in the same way as were the old-fashioned kerosene and gas lights. By 1910, the development of power network systems and of supply sources for public lighting was already making the use of electricity increasingly economical. While it cost 40 koronás a year to operate each of Budapest’s 4600 kerosene lamps, the expense incurred by the operation of one electric light was only 27 to 30 koronás. In 1911, the Municipal Board of Budapest decided 20
