The Spirit of Los Angeles

Dark for half a century, the 2,500-watt Lindbergh Beacon atop City Hall is shining on Los Angeles again. It can be seen on clear December nights from hilltop porches in El Sereno to the Santa Monica Freeway. Go look. The luminous beam sweeps the city full circle six times a minute, a Ramadan lantern, a menorah candle, the Christmas star. It will shine from 5 p.m. to midnight through Jan. 1, a holiday gift--and more.

Plans were to light the beacon when Los Angeles celebrated the reopening of its renovated City Hall in late September. But instead of hanging bunting and building bandstands, city workers found themselves putting up barricades. After the horror of jetliners crashing into skyscrapers, the last thing anyone wanted was to spotlight a civic landmark, a tall one at that.

How things have changed since 1928, the year City Hall opened and a year after Charles Lindbergh flew the Spirit of St. Louis across the Atlantic Ocean. Flying then was risky, even dangerous, but that made airplanes a symbol of daring and triumph, not of fear. To mark the excitement of the new aviation era, city officials crowned their jewel box of a City Hall with an aircraft guidance light and named it the Lindbergh Beacon.

From these lofty beginnings, the light has a storied history. It was so bright it once confused Lindbergh himself, who approached downtown from the air thinking the beacon marked the airport. It was changed to red after complaints from other pilots--and over the objections of a mayor who thought a red light over City Hall sent the wrong message, and not to planes. The beacon went dark in World War II when West Coast cities shrouded windows so as not to attract enemy bombers. Soon after the war it was removed and forgotten.

Restoring the Lindbergh Beacon to its perch on City Hall is a victory for preservationists in a city that thinks it has no history. But lighting it this month is not about the past. It’s a victory of daring over fear. It’s a beam of hope into the future.