To reduce crime, transit officials propose spending about $569 million to install new station lighting, public-address systems, signs, police communications, passenger call boxes on platforms, and intercoms in each subway car.
At about 8 pm the fire destroyed the one circuit supplying the station lighting.
There were a water-treatment facility and a minimal electrical grid for communications and station lighting.
There is no station lighting so trains call (by request) during daylight hours only.
The lamp-posts were removed when the station lighting - and indeed the whole line - were modernised in about 1991, at about the time as the new Class 165 diesel multiple unit trains entered service.
A brief controversy took place over poor station lighting in 1906.
As he said later, it was winter, it was after dark and the station lighting was patchy.
His metal casing glowed a strange copper-ish tone in the harsh glow of station lighting.
In addition to refurbishing the cars, it improved station lighting, rebuilt platforms and invested heavily in the track bed.
They cut $44 million out of a program to modernize station lighting.