(Above) Rendering of The Wabash Lights, an art project being built under the elevated L tracks on Wabash Avenue in the Loop. (Click on images to view larger versions.)

By Steven Dahlman

7-Aug-24 – A plan ten years in the making to reenergize Wabash Avenue with programmable LED tubes on the underside of the L tracks in the Loop will finally see the light on August 15.

Fifty feet of lights, spanning one block between Madison and Monroe Streets, will be switched on at 8:15 p.m., starting Phase 1 of the project. The plan is to eventually light seven blocks, from Lake Street to Van Buren Street, and make the lights a permanent public art display.

When The Wabash Lights was announced in October 2014, filmmaker Jack Newell and design strategist Seth Unger said the lights would have artistic and practical benefits.

“This public display will inspire the residents of Chicago, boost civic pride, and foster a safe, well-lit gathering point in the downtown area,” they said on the project’s website.

Lighting the space under the L tracks, they said, would encourage more pedestrian traffic, increase annual visitors to Chicago, and encourage the growth of local business.

In their announcement on July 25, 2024, Newell and Unger (left) said public art “fuels economic development and transforms urban life through promoting arts and culture, enhancing tourism, and increasing appreciation of and participation in public spaces.”

Unger says they chose Wabash Avenue because unlike the “glitz and glamour” of Michigan Avenue or historic State Street, Wabash is “the people’s corridor.”

“It’s the guy that pushes a laundry cart at the Palmer House,” he said in 2015. “It’s the woman that’s worked at Marshall Field’s or Macy’s for the last 30 years.”

In January 2016, four 12-foot LED fixtures made near Boston by Philips Color Kinetics were installed on Wabash Avenue between Monroe and Adams Streets for 15 months of testing and were then removed. $59,480 had been raised from 918 investors to pay for the installation and testing of the lights. An additional $25,000 came from the media company Comcast.

(Right) The first four Wabash Lights on January 26, 2016, seen from Monroe Street, looking north on Wabash Avenue.

Previous story: Art project seeks $750,000 to light up Wabash