The first street in the U.S. to be lit with electric lighting was the Public Square road system in Cleveland, Ohio, on April 29, 1879. (The first in the world was Mosley Street, in Newcastle upon Tyne.) So it seems fitting that Cleveland's Public Square will soon be lit with light emitting diodes.
Lighting maker GE says it is donating $125,000 in new LED roadway lights and lampposts to the Downtown Cleveland Alliance so it can happen. The GE connection to LED lighting comes through GE physicist Nick Holonyak who invented the first practically useful visible LED in 1962 while working as a consulting scientist at a GE lab in Syracuse,N.Y. and who has been called "the father of the light-emitting diode." (Interestingly, the LED development work did not take place at GE's Nela Park facility in East Cleveland, home of GE's Lighting & Electrical Institute, which was founded in 1933.)
The Public Square lighting installation is scheduled for completion by Thanksgiving 2012.
Also in Cleveland, GE Lighting will provide $80,000 in energy-efficient, ecomagination lighting products to light the exterior of the historic West Side Market as part of the Market's centennial celebration. Its 137-foot-tall clock tower will be illuminated with nearly 30 GE LED spotlights and floodlights. Exterior facings, as well as the street lighting from the West Side Market on Lorain to West 26th Street and all of Market Square, will be re-lamped with energy-efficient GE lighting.
More info from GE: http://www.gereports.com/idea-factory/
http://pressroom.geconsumerproducts.com/pr/ge/invest-in-cleveland-led-lights-and-scholarship.aspx