Bright Lights, Big City

Did you ever see Dallas from a DC-9 at night?
Well Dallas is a jewel, oh yeah, Dallas is a beautiful sight
And Dallas is a jungle but Dallas gives a beautiful light

The Flatlanders

Cities come alive at night.

Blame it on the lights.

Atlanta is guilty:

So is LA, especially as seen from the Hollywood Hills:

Chicago is palpable.

But New York is the king of cities - at night, anyway.

Poet Ezra Pound was on to something:

And New York is the most beautiful city in the world? It is not far from it. No urban night is like the night there... Squares after squares of flame, set up and cut into the aether. Here is our poetry, for we have pulled down the stars to our will.

At night, midtown Manhattan has some similarities to central Idaho.

At night, the repetitive, predictable man-made buildings come alive.

During the day, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Seagram Building is an important architectural icon.

But when the sun goes down, the static assemblage of steel, concrete, and glass becomes a lantern of thousands of individual lights set between other lanterns of thousands of individual lights.

Some lights are on, some are off, some are dim, some are bright. There’s an intricate and complex randomness just like the stars in a night sky.

People creating cool places can capture the same idea - like my pals did at Baby’s All Right, an iconic Brooklyn live music venue:

Simple strung lights bring Denver’s Larimer Square to life:

Same with this favorite pizza joint:

There’s a magic with individual lights.

It works at large scale

or small.

Streets get energized.

And so do holidays.

Happy Holidays to all the real estateurs - may your projects be merry and bright.

PS: If you’re in the business of creating cool places, check out Automatic.