In interviews with the media, my fellow experimental subjects have compared the nighttime environment under the new streetlights to a film set, a prison yard, “a strip mall in outer space” and “the mother ship coming in for a landing” in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” Although going half-blind at 58, I can read by the beam that the new lamp blasts into our front room without tapping our own Con Ed service. Once the LEDs went in, our next-door neighbor began walking her dog at night in sunglasses.

Medical research has firmly established that blue-spectrum LED light can disrupt sleep patterns. This is the same illumination that radiates in far smaller doses from smartphone and computer screens, to which we’re advised to avoid exposure for at least an hour before bed, because it can suppress the production of melatonin. The tribute to “the city that never sleeps” was meant to celebrate a vibrant cultural night life — not a town of hollow-eyed “Walking Dead” insomniacs.

While the same light has also been associated with increased risk of breast cancer and mood disorders, in all honesty my biggest beef with LEDs has nothing to do with health issues. These lights are ugly. They’re invasive. They’re depressing. New York deserves better.

Yet the substitution of LEDs for traditional high-pressure sodium bulbs, whose familiar tangerine glow would have suited my rare upbeat humor at 13, is proving irresistible to many cities because of the economic benefits. Chicago, Seattle, Boston, Philadelphia, Detroit and Los Angeles have all undertaken mass retrofits. Although three to four times more expensive, the new bulbs are supposed to last two to four times longer than their predecessors, reducing energy costs between 30 and 70 percent.

Thus the advance of this technology has an inexorable quality. Rather than stand in the way and get mowed down, we urban aesthetes are probably better off focusing on the fact that all LEDs are not created equal.