Great framing in the first photo!
The orangish color is from a combination of your white balance setting in the camera and the orange lights. You probably had the white balance setting on auto? Orange street lights are usually the biggest killer of night photos because it is nearly impossible to create realistic colors AND remove the orange hue at the same time. Most people use the tungsten or flouresent WB setting (which gives the entire photo a blue hue), and in return neutralizing the orange hue. However when doing this the objects that are farther away from the orange light already have more accurate colors, so after the WB adjustment some objects could be colored incorrectly. The easiest solution to this is always shoot in RAW, and adjust the white balance to your own liking once you upload the photos on the computer. Your camera should have a CD with a program that will do this without buying an more expensive program like Lightroom or Photoshop. Once you capture your photo in .JPEG format, the white balance is permanently in the photo and cannot be adjusted.
New Years tip #1: for accurate white balance and more accurate colors, always shoot in RAW, then adjust the white balance in the computer later.
BTW- I do think the orangish color makes the first photo look great! #1 is very good. Nice work FlyorDie.