It should come as no surprise that now is the winter of our SAD-affected discontent. February might be the most hated month out of all of them, with August pulling up a quick second, but is there anything so disappointing as being in the dismal depths of winter as looking up at the John Hancock Center and seeing…white?
I noticed this as I sludged my way home on another frozen El car, packed in with the throngs of humanity that probably consider looking up as a “touristy” thing to do. Staring out the window and poking my nose upward as we travelled from Chicago to Sedgwick, I noticed that the top of the Hancock was about as boring as I’d ever seen it.
Photo by Plasticshore on Flickr.
For those among us who don’t speak the language of the Holiday Hancock, the top of the building traditionally changes colors according to the season and the holiday. For example, orange for Halloween, Red and Blue for the 4th of July, Red and Green for Christmas, a strange orangey-pink for Valentines day, and an actual pink for Breast Cancer Awareness month. Almost all of these come in rapid succession, so for a decent amount of time we have a very festive portion of skyline. And then, dumped in the tail end of the winter season, we get to look up and see…..white. In the immortal words of Charlie Brown, “sigh.”
It shouldn’t affect me so profoundly, but for some reason it does. We get accustomed to a small sense of playfulness and then when it’s taken away just when we need it most, what’s our replacement? It’s not like the moon is colored any differently – and if you pay attention to Revelation if it turns all blood-colored we’re in for some serious business. So that’s out.
All that remains are the beacons on top of the antennas for low-flying planes to avoid, and those are only a couple seconds in alternations. Hard to get excited about those, but I bet if I really tried, and if I really needed to, I could do it. Oh, and the State and Lake elevated stop has some changing lights, but they’re pretty much always stuck on purple because nothing at that station is operational or safe whatsoever.
Photo by Harvard Avenue on Flickr.
The colors will most likely return around St. Patricks Day for a few days of green, accompanied by the annual nuking of the river (a tradition which, if it died last year, wouldn’t find me shedding any tears) and the annual puking in the streets. It’s tough for me to get excited over that, and if April Fools Day had any sort of shades associated with it, I’d probably be more prone to anticipating that day – unless April 15th they just shut off the lights entirely. That would be appropriate.
It makes you think who in the building has that particular job. Someone has to be the Maintenance Tech In Charge of Light Color Changing. It’s probably a part-time job. That sort of seasonal position doesn’t strike me as one that gets benefits with it.
Photo by meironke on flickr.
No matter what the pay scale, here’s to you, Color Changing guy. I doubt you have any real say over the matter, but it probably beats cleaning out another executive restroom on the 92nd floor. I don’t know what kind of view you have as you switch out those huge color screens that I’m assuming go right in front of the normal lights. I’m going to believe that before those shades go in, you’ve got a picture of the city that you can’t buy after an overpriced trip to the Observatory or on a postcard at Navy Pier.
And then as you slide that last green plastic Lexan piece home and into place in advance of the next “holiday,” and you get to see the entire city bathed in color, like some Technicolor mistake that’s spread out to all of reality, you can think of the tiny people milling about down below that appreciate it. Don’t know what you got, til’ it gone, said Cinderella. Don’t know what colors you want to see when you look up in Chicago, says I.