Comment of the Day: Upping the Voltage on Houston’s Downtown Views

COMMENT OF THE DAY: UPPING THE VOLTAGE ON HOUSTON’S DOWNTOWN VIEWS Electric Blue Skyline” . . . I wonder, if the property management companies downtown would illuminate the Houston skyline with LED lighting, how cool it would look? With Houston’s strong artistic community, it would be great to see a curated lighting of the skyline that’s different when you drive in from every angle. As they stand in the dark every night, you can’t at all see the pyramid atop Heritage Plaza, the outlines of the “kissing” Pennzoil Place towers, or hardly see the three tiers and spikes of Bank of America. At night, the Energy Capital of the World’s skyline is hardly . . . yawn . . . energetic.” [Austin, commenting on Shining a Little More Light on the Williams Tower Beacon, Now Back in Action] Illustration: Lulu

17 Comment

  • This reminds me, the 30th anniversary of Rendez-vous Houston is approaching! Everyone remember that epic traffic jam that Jean-Michel Jarre cooked up?

  • Rendez-vous Houston! I did not have a DL yet but was in the madness front and center on Allen Parkway. Good times!!!

  • Yeah, MetroNational gets it with Memorial City. So does every other major metro.

    Why does Houston’s skyline look so dark and lame at night?

  • More outlining or spotlighting of the skyline could be nice, but visiting Dallas recently I realized one man’s “energetic” is another man’s “tacky as hell”

  • Just make sure the curated LED skyline is turned off during spring and fall bird migration: https://www.audubon.org/news/new-york-turns-out-lights

  • Houston has never been as flashy as, say, Dallas or Los Angeles. Houston seems to be more practical-minded.

  • Yes, some of Dallas’ skyline is tacky, but a lot of it looks great. You can see it! And people seem to love the illumination.

    We could at least get some LED at the tops so you can see the architecture and make out how wide the skyline goes. You can’t even see 3/4 of the buildings at night. All the Houston skyline pics at night are photoshopped so you can see the buildings. Google it!

  • To make up for what?
    Neon bedevils Dallas.
    H-town’s easy pride.

  • @Deb, MetroN needs to re-design that weird crown thing but otherwise it’s good. Their Christmas lights are awesome. The crown though looks like a Latin Kings logo or some other gang sign involving royalty. Can you say TACKY.

  • It doesn’t have to be flashy or tacky.

    I say, get with the arts community and do something tasteful and beautiful. So you can see the skyline by night. That’s the whole idea.

    It’s doesn’t have to be flashing neon, or anything like that.

  • Architectural lighting would be great.

  • Somebody should create some renderings with ideas. Transco, too.

  • Here, here, to this comment.

    >More outlining or spotlighting of the skyline could be nice, but visiting Dallas recently I realized one man’s “energetic” is >another man’s “tacky as hell”

  • It doesn’t have to be flashy, but lighting the skyline would be great. I would prefer the spotlight facing up method of Power of Houston (1997). Sure color changing lights are cool, but we don’t have to have every skyscraper going full disco.

    Paint the top of the shell tv tower all white, and have some color changing lights on it like the Bank of America or Times Square building in NYC. Add some spot lights at the base of the buildings and there you have it. You don’t have to go full Hong Kong.

  • The MetroNational tower is blue tonight. It looks like the iron throne of westeros towering over 1-10.

  • Just because you happen to be in the energy business doesn’t mean that you ought to go around using it willy nilly. I mean hell, look at Saudi or Lybian or Venezualan energy subsidies to the consumer. None of that makes one lick of sense. Thats not being in business, thats being prideful or nationalistic or plainly stupid. Houston should not embrace these purile impulses as its identity.