Brightness Outside, Darkened Moods Inside

They lie awake for hours, squeezing their eyes shut, putting pillows over their heads and trying to close the louvered blinds tighter. They rearrange their rooms -- even their homes -- and spend hundreds of dollars on room-darkening shades.

Some furtively climb ladders to coat the bright streetlights outside their homes with a cloud of black spray paint, hoping to eclipse the glare.

One woman said the fancy new street lamps outside her apartment window are so bright that a recent dinner guest donned sunglasses before tucking into his pasta.

As neighborhoods across the District get lighting upgrades, residents increasingly are crying foul. New fixtures meant to fit a neighborhood's historic aesthetic and the introduction of energy-efficient bulbs have been causing sleepless nights from Georgetown to Penn Quarter.

"These lights are not practical for residential neighborhoods," Maryann Puglisi said of the streetlights erected in December outside her Dupont Circle building. They are beautiful, arching pendants that resemble a long bishop's crook with a fluted, ornamental base. "If you look out my window, it hurts. The globe of light just pierces your eyes."

Neighborhoods periodically get lighting upgrades, sometimes at the request of residents or because aging electrical systems need to be replaced. Other changes are made to evoke the city's history, like the rows of "Washington globes," wrought-iron sentries holding aloft glass spheres along Georgetown's quaint streets, on the grand stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue downtown and in other historic areas.

Upgrading the city's 67,000 lights is being done on a piecemeal basis. Rebuilding each streetlight -- with a new duct, wiring, manhole, pole, hardware, bulb and globe -- could cost up to $25,000, said Karyn LeBlanc, spokeswoman for the D.C. Department of Transportation.

When giant glass globes and decorative lampposts first graced the cobblestone streets of yesteryear, the light source was a small gas flame.

Today, white-hot 150-watt bulbs burn in the similarly styled light fixtures. The high-pressure sodium lights found throughout most of the city are the most energy-efficient, cost-effective and long-lasting product, LeBlanc said. But inside the old-time glass globes, their light spills beyond the sidewalk, up to the sky -- and into the bedroom.

In some cases, when residents have complained about too-bright lights, engineers found that the neighborhood had simply grown used to the soft glow of a dirty, dying light and are shocked at how bright a new bulb can be, LeBlanc said.

"People like the Washington globe. It's an old, historic look. The problem is, the Washington globe shines right into the home," said D.C. Council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1). "I've had neighborhoods that lobbied and lobbied and lobbied for the Washington globes and got them, then hated them."

The problem of light spillage was addressed across America in the 1950s, when the sleek design of the "cobra light" made its debut. Looking much like the namesake's head, the cobra lights stream light downward from their aluminum casings.