Albany Times-Union
Churchill: The perfect new home for Holiday Lights
The annual lights display will leave Washington Park. Here's where it
should go next
Chris Churchill
Oct. 12, 2021
ALBANY — So, that's it. This next Capital Holiday Lights will be its
last in Washington Park, and the event needs to find a new home.
That's probably for the best. The traffic, exhaust and noise of 25,000
cars over a six-week span do not equal what a green jewel like
Washington Park is supposed to be. Heck, if somebody were to make me
king, I'd try removing cars from the park altogether.
Still, there are reasons, I think, to have misgivings about the
departure of Holiday Lights from Washington Park — to fear its leaving
may be bad for Albany, even if it's good for the park and the people who
live around it.
For one thing, the annual event is the big fundraiser for the Albany
Police Athletic League, paying for a broad array of programs, including
childcare, that benefit kids in the city's poorest neighborhoods.
Will a relocated Holiday Lights make as much money?
Probably not. Meanwhile, moving the event might also hit the city's economy.
Albany boosters never seem to believe me when I say this, but there are
a healthy number of Capital Region residents who never go into the city.
They feel there's nothing much to draw them in, and the city's ongoing
violence problems are a reason to stay away.
Consider: Saturday night's mass shooting, which killed one and injured
six others, was at least the third time this year when at least five
people have been injured at once in the city. Rightly or wrongly, the
horror of that threatens to define Albany in the region's collective mind.
Holiday Lights, for all its problems and headaches, helped acclimate
outsiders to Albany, showing them its beauty and proving there's more to
the place than the violence. While restaurant and business owners on
nearby Lark Street say they don't receive much of a boost from Holiday
Lights, I still believe an event that draws 100,000 people benefits the
city in ways big and small.
It would be a good thing, then, for Holiday Lights to find a new
location in central Albany, instead of moving to, say, the Harriman
State Office Campus or some other place on the fringe, and I happen to
have a suggestion: Empire State Plaza.
Imagine, if you will, the displays spread around the massive platform, a
dazzling complement to the big decorated tree, the skating rink and
crowds from "The Nutcracker" spilling from The Egg. Add a few vendors,
take down the ugly winter barricades, throw in a sprinkling of holiday
magic and we might just get the Albany version of a European Christmas
market.
Yes, this version of Holiday Lights would require that people get out of
their cars and walk off the eggnog. But the plaza is flat, and there's
plenty of parking. Another plus: ample electricity.
True, I know it seems unlikely the state of New York would allow it. Its
muckety mucks reportedly balked at Mayor Kathy Sheehan's suggestion that
Holiday Lights move to state-owned Harriman, and those winter barricades
suggest someone in the bureaucracy is deathly afraid a litigious visitor
might slip on ice and sue.
And so, skating rink aside, the Plaza is pretty much a barren,
depressing wasteland over the many months of our long winters. No fun
allowed. Go to the mall, riffraff!
That isn't what Empire State Plaza was meant to be, mind you. A broken
promise of its construction — the supposed trade-off for wiping away a
chunk of the city — was that the plaza would be Albany's beating civic
heart, a place of art and celebration and music and life.
Bringing Holiday Lights there would be a step toward realizing that
long-ago vision. And maybe, just maybe, the administration of Gov. Kathy
Hochul will be more willing to welcome the public to state property — a
welcome change from the fellow whose paranoia turned the Capitol into a
fortress.
For what it's worth, I wrote a version of this for my weekly newsletter
— what?! you don't subscribe?!! — and the reaction to the idea of
moving Holiday Lights to the plaza was overwhelmingly positive. Several
readers said they would like a version of the event that gets people out
of their cars.
Ann in Watervliet offered a suggestion: golf carts.
"As a senior," she wrote, "the thought of walking around on the ice
isn’t too appealing, and you mentioned New York state fearing lawsuits
if people fell on the ice. So, golf carts would solve my problem as well
as the state’s."
Interesting idea, although I suspect the state's lawyers would faint at
the notion of golf carts zipping around. Yet there would need to some
way to move people with mobility issues around the plaza. A holiday
train, perhaps?
cchurchill@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx ■ 518-454-5442 ■ @chris_churchill
https://www.timesunion.com/churchill/article/Churchill-The-perfect-new-home-for-Holiday-Lights-16524889.php
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