The Wall Street Journal recently looked at global attitudes towards urban LED lighting makeovers. Until recently, the Empire State Building dominated New York City’s lightscape with its nighttime glow. In 2007, color-changing LED lights were installed, opening doors for unprecedented seasonal holiday effects.
New York's midtown skyline at night. Image via Wikimedia Commons.
Since then, a bevy of buildings from storefronts to skyscrapers have been following suit. And (like anything that happens in NYC) it’s drawing a difference of opinions. The Waverly, an iconic West Village diner, got the RGB LED treatment during recent renovations. Owner Nick Serafis explains, “I get bored of one color, especially white.”
While business owners are on-board with the LED revolution, many of the city’s aesthetes take issue with the new-school look. “It’s very Asian,” said Cy Wilson, Starwood Hotels’ global director of interior design. He refers to the sudden boom in LED signage spreading outwards from newly metropolised cities such as Guangzhou, China.
While it’s true that change isn’t always good, we here at LED Waves see this as a reflection of how our great city is constantly evolving. Johnathan Garrison, studio director at Yabu Pushelberg, grudgingly agrees. “Look,” explained Mr. Garrison, “you have the old cities in Europe, the young cities in Asia and then you have New York, which is a middle-aged city. So it’s going through a bit of a midlife crisis. It’s fine. It’ll work itself out.”
