Lights in spotlight
Chris Churchill weighs in on Capital Holiday Lights in the Park’s woes./
Contact columnist Chris Churchill at 518454-5442 or email cchurchill@ timesunion. com
MAlbany ayor Kathy Sheehan says the traffic is too much and, therefore, the extremely popular Capital Holiday Lights in the Park display should move from its longtime home in the heart of the city.
Well, there’s nothing like a bit of controversy dropped in the days leading up to Christmas. But might the mayor have a point? First, any discussion about the future of Holiday Lights should start with an acknowledgment of what the Albany Police Athletic League does for the city and its children.
With an eye toward preventing crime — of heightened importance in this year of spiking violence — PAL provides access to childcare, sports and a range of other activities for kids needing a hand. Holiday Lights, which accounts for more than half of PAL’S funding, helps
make it all possible.
A key question, then, would seem to center on whether the bother Holiday Lights causes for its relatively privileged neighborhood is worth the trouble, given the good it delivers to neighborhoods less fortunate.
“I wouldn’t say for a second that we haven’t caused inconvenience for people around the park,” said Lenny Ricchiuti, who is PAL’S longtime executive director. “But when you have an event, you weigh the pluses and minuses and you make a determination. This determination was made years ago.”
Twenty-four years ago, to be exact. That’s when PAL began its annual light display in Washington Park.
Of course, nobody imaged at the time that the event would become so big and popular, or that it would emerge into one of the region’s cherished traditions. Holiday Lights may now be a victim of its own success.
The event now brings more than 100,000 visitors annually to a show that has grown to include 126 illuminated displays. More relevant, for the discussion at hand, is that its visitors arrive in as many as 25,000 cars for the slow drive through the park.
That’s too much traffic, says Mayor Kathy Sheehan, who last week told my colleague Steve Barnes that this year’s display should be the last at its longtime home. The mayor, seemingly responding to a few recent nights of particularly unbear
able gridlock on surrounding streets, said she’d be OK with moving it to a place like the Harriman Campus.
“The sheer volume of traffic
... it’s unacceptable,” Sheehan said, noting the impact on emergency services and adding that this year “the scale has tipped, and we’ve got to really revisit what we’re doing.”
Ricchiuti, I think it’s fair to say, was surprised and hurt by the timing and pointedness of Sheehan’s words. The mayor gave no prior hint of her displeasure, he said, and it was just a month ago when she came to Holiday Lights to celebrate another year of the display and
ceremonially flip its switch.
But in a way, Sheehan’s comments were a long time coming, given that advocates for the park have been upset by the traffic and impact of Holiday Lights for years. That’s hardly irrational, by the way. Washington Park is a park, a word that doesn’t exactly conjure up images of gridlock and electrical infrastructure.
In certain respects, Holiday Lights has always been an uncomfortable fit for a landscape created to offer a respite from the noise and stresses of the city. (Unfortunately, traffic is a year-round problem in Washington Park; At least cars head
ed to Holiday Lights are forced to move slowly.)
This year, before the snowstorm shuttered it for a few nights, Holiday Lights was headed toward record attendance, which explains why the traffic has been particularly brutal this year.
The reason for its heightened popularity is obvious: The pandemic has left families with few other things to do. People are eager to get out of the house. They want normalcy.
Holiday Lights in the Park gives them that. It’s a connection to holidays past and less stressful times.
That makes this a fraught moment to suggest taking the display away, and may explain why Sheehan’s suggestion generated such an emotional response from the event’s supporters.
Or maybe they just hate the idea of it moving to Harriman, a collection of bland, modern boxes that hardly exemplifies holiday warmth and spirit. The state-owned campus is as dull as a box of cornflakes. It’s hard to see how the display would work there in quite the same way.
After all, the Christmas-card charm of Washington Park — with its lake house, hilly topography, and narrow, winding roads — is a key reason Holiday Lights has succeeded so wonderfully. The display isn’t just about the lights. It is also a celebration of what’s lovely about Albany.
For that reason alone, the city should do what it can to make Holiday Lights work. Compromise seems the best solution. The problems seem fixable.
To reduce congestion, sell tickets with a scheduled admission time so families don’t all arrive at once, as Sheehan has requested. Set more nights aside for pedestrians alone to walk the lights. Encourage fewer cars and more shuttle buses. Limit the number of vehicles allowed each night.
If the problem is that Holiday Lights has grown too big for its neighborhood, make it smaller. Isn’t less of a good thing better than nothing at all?