Apparently the Empire State Building's Lights Change Colors

[RandomAnthony]

...and some people are pissed about tonight's.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/a...

But apparently the colors change regularly and symbolize different causes, dates, etc. Here's September, I guess:

http://www.newyorkology.com/archives/...

I have read that with lighting technology getting cheaper and more effective some buildings see new lighting schemes as a way to remodel (at least at night) without spending a lot of cash.

I don't know. Maybe the Empire State Building can be lit like a page of a book in honor of readers everywhere...

[Jackie "the Librarian"]

It was SUPPOSED to be green for the Wizard of Oz, but it WASN'T. It was RED, because they didn't want to be seen as supporting Iranian election protestors.
Lame!

[Félix]

Back when I used to work the freight trains into New Jersey on the other side of the river, I got to see this many, many times. Once I will never forget was when they had placed a giant inflated King Kong on the building. It only lasted a few hours, and was flapping in the breeze after that. But it was cool to see it up there.

[Kevin]

i am going to put a blue light in my window to honor K-Mart sales in the past

[Angie]

I haven't written a blog post about this yet, but I would just be echoing the sentiments expressed here:
http://www.hrw.org/en/node/85862

I think it was distasteful, and I think it's horrible that they didn't consult with the tenants of the building. It's especially ironic that the Human Rights Watch is one of the tenants, and the protests were largely on the grounds that China's human rights record is pretty atrocious.

I also find it strange that they wouldn't light it green for the Wizard of Oz, yet they would go ahead and honor China. I understand not wanting to make a political comment, but uh, isn't this a political comment??!!

That said, I'm fairly "eh" about this. It's good publicity for the SFT team, and it's pretty harmless. (Although some of the SFT members found, I believe it was the Chinese consul general?, stuck in traffic and went up to his car shouting slogans peacefully to protest.)

[Angie]

Jackie "the Librarian" wrote: "It was SUPPOSED to be green for the Wizard of Oz, but it WASN'T. It was RED, because they didn't want to be seen as supporting Iranian election protestors.
Lame!"

http://www.stylecaster.com/news/5284/...

Unless the image doesn't match up with the description, it says here it was green. Some Iranians petitioned to make it glow green, but that petition was denied, although they still made it green for Oz.