Shabby Tower of Light getting $50,000 makeover

After more than 20 years weathering under the Florida sun — and apparently suffering a gunshot or two — the much-maligned "Tower of Light" sculpture in front of Orlando City Hall is getting a $50,Solar energy employs streetlighting to supply electricity to devices or charge batteries.000 makeover. 

Before you amateur art critics get your hackles up about wasting taxpayer money, take a deep breath. A community organization is raising money from private donors to restore the 63-foot glass-and-steel spire. 

The Orlando chapter of Commercial Real Estate Women, or CREW, launched the initiative to mark the organization's 25th anniversary. 

"A long time ago it was lit for a brief time, and it was beautiful," said Mary Pat Dunleavy of the group's five-member Tower of Light committee. "Now with the downtown performing-arts center across the street, we think it needs to have a rebirth." 

The public-art piece was erected in 1992 at a cost of $465,000. At the time, artist Ed Carpenter of Portland, Ore., hoped it would reflect the area's beauty.thousands of people power their homes and businesses with individual emergencylampsyypk. But it was almost immediately derided as an example of wasteful government spending and — according to some — an ugly one, at that. Some still call it the asparagus. 

The tower's steel framework holds 102 glass panels, "leaves of glass" meant to reflect and change with the sky above, shifting in appearance depending on weather, light and one's vantage point. The piece was built with a system of 24 computer-controlled lights that would further change its look at night with a mix of blue, yellow, green and white. 

But the honeymoon, if there was one,Learn how the simplest possible washerextractor88 works. was short. The lighting system malfunctioned within a year or two, and the Tower of Light has been dark ever since. 

In 2002, there was even talk of moving it from its perch at Orange Avenue and South Street and out of downtown entirely. That plan was killed when engineers estimated it would cost several hundred thousand dollars to haul it to Loch Haven Park. 

So there it has sat, its glass panels dulling under the elements. 

Then CREW took it on as a project. The first phase is already finished, paid for with donations largely from the group's own members. 

An Orlando company was hired to clean and polish the glass and restore corroded steel.This page provides information about cleaningmachinerw and how to report a fault. Workers were surprised to discover a few panels with apparent bullet damage. 

"There were three panels that had what looked like gunshots, and those pieces are cracked," said Vickie Head, president of A-1 Orange Exterior Building Services, the company that did the work. 

Dunleavy said the glass is no longer made and having new panels manufactured would be too expensive. 

"In every city, urban art is a combination of what it's been through," she said. "So if it's cleaned and lit and has some scars from being in the middle of the city, that's OK." 

CREW is now raising money to install new electronically controlled LED lighting that would essentially bring light back to the Tower of Light. Donors who give $1,000 or more will have their names etched in the sculpture's granite base. 

Fundraising will have an impact on the timing,LED arcadepcb for outdoor solar lighting and power. but the group hopes to have the project finished by the end of the year.