The PNA Business Advisory Group and the Greenwood Arts Council have organized a fun new project for the November-December holiday season. They’ll light the air raid tower at North 67th Street and Phinney Avenue North and hang 150 monkeys with lights from trees, awnings and poles all along Phinney and Greenwood avenues from North 59th to 87th streets.
Here’s a prototype being shaped in the workshop.
And here it is all lit up.
The project is made possible by a grant from Seattle’s Department of Neighborhoods, which means the community has to match it with volunteer hours.
Here’s more info from organizers Ann Bowden and Mike Veitenhans:
The idea grew out of discussions about ways to promote the neighborhood businesses. The air raid tower is a unique feature in the neighborhood and became a natural focus for the project and a central location for a lighting event. In addition, the Woodland Park Zoo’s new WildLights offered an opportunity to capitalize on the thousands of people who travel to the neighborhood to see holiday lights. And so the project was born.
This fall, a 17-foot tall, 20-spoked, 6000 LED structure (shaped something like a cone) will be created to hang from the tower’s work platform. On Nov. 29, the structure will be lighted during a holiday lighting event.
In addition, 150 metal frame monkeys will also be created, wrapped in LED lighting strips and posted on trees, lamp posts, awnings and in windows at various locations along Phinney and Greenwood. Think what fun it will be trying to spot all of the monkeys who’ve “escaped” from the Zoo’s WildLights.
Because this is a DON grant, community members are needed to help match the funds with volunteer efforts – everything from helping to create the monkeys to hanging them to planning and executing the lighting event.
First up – Benders are needed soon. Volunteer “benders” will bend 1/8″ x 3/4″ flat bar into various monkey shapes. The work will be done in a workshop in South Lake Union. Volunteers will be trained, need to have strong hands, not be afraid of sweating and getting dirty, and able to work at least 2-hour shifts. Tack welding experience would be nice.
Additional volunteer job descriptions will be developed soon.
Anyone interested in being part of this should contact Mike Veitenhans or Ann Bowden by emailing [email protected] or [email protected].
