The District Weekly’s Paul Brennan takes us back. Back to a time of optimism, a time of innovation, a time of failure.
In a biting piece entitled “Frickin Laser Beams!” Brennan reminisces about Downtown Lights, a three-year experiment to attract people to downtown commerce by illuminating Pine Street with lasers at night. Yes, lasers. As Brennan points out, it became just one of Long Beach’s many attempts at innovation that eventually lost steam, dried out, went the way of the dinosaurs, and other metaphors.
Would the attraction of a gimmick like this lure the city in again? And are we headed down that path anytime in the future?