How do you transform blighted areas with minimal foot traffic into inviting places or, in other words, increase revenues for businesses on a side of the city less traveled? Artist Bill FitzGibbons had a “bright” idea.
Beneath the underpassses of Interstate Highway 37 at both Houston and Commerce Streets in San Antonio, Texas, FitzGibbons would create an LED lighting system that would make the the underpasses more pedestrian and motorist friendly, while at the same time increase business traffic for the more desolate area. It would be called Light Channels.
First, he installed nine aluminum-capped sculptural columns and then put in hundreds of LED lights that would flash through a range of basic colors in a sequence that repeated every 15 or 20 minutes beginning at dusk. Rainbow-colored underpasses. Who wouldn’t want to check those out?
