From http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NonNaziSwastika/
From http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NonNaziSwastika/

Soon-To-Be-Rehabbed San Diego

noticing details in design

by Reviewer Rob

Look closely at the photo at the bottom of this page. It’s of the base of a Downtown San Diego street lamp in front of the federal courthouse building, next to Horton Plaza. Can you find the rolling swastikas, Waldo?

Most likely this example of fancy art deco public safety illumination was installed pre-1930’s. Today it would definitely be deemed not kosher.

~RR

The text below and the image at top are from a web page titled “Non-Nazi Swastikas — TV Tropes”:

The swastika is an ancient sun symbol, used in many cultures throughout history. If you see a swastika in a work – any work – made in the 1920s or earlier, the symbol has nothing to do with Nazi Germany.

It’s usually golden rather than black, often has arms pointing anti-clockwise in contrast to the clockwise Nazi swastika, and standing “straight”, with one cross-arm vertical and the other horizontal, rather than standing on one corner like the Nazi one. Usually, but far from always, there are lots of variants. See the Real Life examples below for more details.

Note on terminology:
Swastika is the modern English word for the symbol facing either direction (卍 or 卐), a loanword based on the Sanskrit word for the 卐 symbol, “svastika” (which also has some other meanings). For reference, the Sanskrit for 卍 is “sauvastika”.

Manji is the Japanese word for the counterclockwise version of the symbol (卍). Japanese also has a few different words for the clockwise version (卐), most of which translate along the lines of “reverse manji”. It comes from the Chinese character for either symbol, man (卍 or 卐)—”manji” means “man symbol/letter/character”.

San Diego lamp post base, south of Broadway, between Federal Building and Horton Plaza. Photo by Reviewer Magazine.
San Diego lamp post base, south of Broadway, between Federal Building and Horton Plaza. Photo by Reviewer Magazine.

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