At 8 p.m. on Sunday, the glimmering light display that has illuminated the Bay Bridge for the past decade will go dark.
With the flip of a switch, the Bay Area’s largest public artwork will fizzle out what has become a fixture of the San Francisco waterfront, dazzling tourists and locals alike.
The 25,000 LED lights sparkling from the steel suspension cables on the 1.8-mile western span of the bridge are failing faster than can be replaced. And the nonprofit that manages the grand display is trying to raise $11 million to install a new system that can better withstand the elements.
The “Bay Lights” installation launched on March 5, 2013 — 10 years ago to the day it will be shut off. Initially designed as a temporary commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the bridge, it has since been funded by private donations.
“It represents the vitality of San Francisco and the Bay Area, and it’s hard now to imagine the city without it,” said Ben Davis, founder of Illuminate, the nonprofit in charge of the display.
When the project was first launched, organizers lauded it as the largest light installation of its kind in the world — four times larger than the display on the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
“Paris, eat your heart out,” Gov. Gavin Newsom, the city’s former mayor, said before the launch. “I love the Eiffel Tower, but we have the Bay Bridge, and it ain’t so bad!”
Leo Villareal, the New York light sculptor who wrote the software to activate the lights, told the Bay Area News Group in 2012 that “I think it will reinvigorate people’s view of this iconic bridge that people live with all the time and take for granted.”
Villareal said he intended to capture the energy and flow of cars, ships, tides, winds, fog, fish, water and birds, converging in one place. The the U.S. Coast Guard was the final agency to sign off on the project after it was satisfied the lights wouldn’t confuse ship captains on foggy nights.
Davis isn’t giving up on the campaign to keep the lights on. He said the donations would go toward doubling the number of lights, and wrapping them around both sides of the cables so they can be seen from the east and west of the span and by drivers on the bridge. Villareal would continue designing the light show, and Davis said he doesn’t expect any significant changes to the display, but rather “beautiful refinements.”
Illuminate had planned to have the new display up and running by Labor Day, but that’s no longer feasible. There isn’t any deadline to raise the money, but the sooner the fundraising goal is reached, Davis said, the sooner the lights will return.
The nonprofit aims to raise 10 separate $1 million donations from wealthy donors and philanthropists and has also launched a public crowdfunding campaign for the last $1 million.
So far, the effort has received about $6 million, including from the Koum Family Foundation, started by Jan Koum, founder of WhatsApp; Jerry Dodson, founder of San Francisco financial planner Parnassus Investments; and Matt Mullenweg, who founded the blog and website platform WordPress. The rest of the donors are remaining anonymous.
The crowdfunding campaign, which launched this month, had as of Saturday raised over $16,000.
Davis said he declined to ask for art grants from San Francisco, because Illuminate would rather see that money go to smaller arts organizations to “support a fabric of arts” throughout the city.
He hopes the donation effort and crowdfunding campaign encourage a sense of civic pride among Bay Area residents.
“Philanthropy can actually be fun, especially when we do it together,” Davis said, adding that donors have the chance to “know they are part of what they see on the Bay Bridge.”
