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Nearby, the Prince Street parking garage was taking on those red, white and blue colors — without the explosions.
The screw curve ramp of the garage, at the corner of North Prince and East Orange streets, has been lit every night since Thursday in patriotic colors.
The inside of the helix changes color every five minutes. Every 16 minutes, it is programmed to blend through the colors several times, Mark Vergenes, board chairman of the Lancaster Parking Authority, said Sunday.
The lights can make a whole palette of colors, and the programming can be easily changed by computer, Vergenes said. For Halloween, the garage may take on an Orange hue. For Christmas, look for red and green.
The $60,000 parking authority project was funded with assistance of a $19,000 grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Community & Economic Development received through Lancaster Investment in a Vibrant Economy, he said.
"Everybody loved it. They said it was really cool," Vergenes said of the reactions he has heard.
Lancaster Mayor Rick Gray said he was walking out of a reception at the nearby Quilt & Textile Museum on Thursday night when he stopped to watch the garage lights. He was with a group of mayors from across the state in town for the Pennsylvania League of Cities and Municipalities convention. They all ooohed and aaahed, Gray said.
Vergenes said the lighting is an attempt to put the best face on the garage.
"You basically have a structure that is so non-Lancaster — it wasn't built in the 1800s — people can look at it and say, 'It just doesn't fit,'" Vergenes said.
Since they couldn't hide the prominently placed ramp, they decided to highlight it with the lights.
"I think it really took something that was an eyesore for most and now it enhances the area and makes it a lot better."
Gray, who lives across Prince Street from the garage, believes more people are coming to accept mid-20th century modernist architecture.
"For a long time, I didn't appreciate how it looks. Now, to highlight it really helps accentuate the look of it," Gray said.
The lights also are intended to add to the city and North Prince Street in particular as Lancaster's arts area. Several arts galleries are across the street in the block now called Gallery Row. And colored lights were installed five years ago on the facade of the Pennsylvania College of Art & Design and at the top of the city police station in the next block.
E-mail: bharris@lnpnews.com
