Who lights Cleveland's Terminal Tower? And why was the iconic building dark for decades

The Terminal Tower can be lit in a wide variety of patterns and colors, like this unicorn-evoking blend of pastels. (Ygal Kaufman / Ideastream Public Media)

On a recent warm summer evening in Downtown Cleveland's Public Square, the lights on the pointed top iconic Terminal Tower shifted from pink, to purple, to red and gold.

People for miles could see the colors blend from one to another, but they probably didn't know what was behind those lighting choices — or who decided which colors were projected.

The short answer is it’s this guy with his cellphone:

Aaron Price has the ability to change the lighting scheme from his phone, putting the power to change the visual theme of the Downtown skyline at his finger tips. (Ygal Kaufman / Ideastream Public Media)

Aaron Price stood next to the splash pad on Public Square. He tapped his cellphone screen and pointed up at the 708-foot skyscraper — arguably the most iconic and defining of Cleveland’s skyline — as hues of the rainbow danced across the building.

"So now I am turning on the lights from zero intensity all the way to 100, and that activates more than 500 color changing lights on the tower, and we can do almost any combination of color scheme that you can think of," he explained as he pressed buttons on the screen.

Price works for K&D Management, a real estate agency that bought the building in 2016. He is one of a few people who hold such powers at his fingertips.

It’s a completely digitized process. Hundreds of LED lights on the skyscraper's crown are powered by a smartphone app that connects to a server in the tower.

These light panels do the heavy lifting to make the tower shine in different patterns. (Ygal Kaufman / Ideastream Public Media)

"We really love when we have a night that nothing is scheduled because we can just flip through color schemes, especially in the summer when everyone's outside," Price said. "They may not know why the tower is lighting up in a rainbow, but it's just for fun sometimes."

Usually, the team adheres to a schedule, posted daily to social media, which includes free lighting programs designed for local organizations that apply on the tower’s site.

"Having the opportunity to have your Terminal Tower lit up in our organization's colors, which then prompts people to look on social media and see why it's that way, is a really great way of helping raise awareness about smaller organizations," said Andy Trares, the deputy director of the May Dugan Center. Earlier this year, the social services organization's colors of blue and green were displayed on the tower.

Terminal Tower in Downtown Cleveland (Ryan Loew / Ideastream Public Media)

But you can’t talk about today’s lighting without unspooling the history of the nearly century-old, 52-story building and the decades it sat dark.

The Terminal Tower — and its lights — have defined the city’s skyline since it was constructed atop a train terminal in the late 1920s. At that time, it was the tallest skyscraper in the world outside New York City and instantly became a recognizable icon of Cleveland with its Beaux-Arts architectural style.

The building included lights from the start: rotating strobes that helped guide boats and airplanes, as well as external spotlights illuminating the building.

But about a decade after its completion, World War II hit.

"Major American cities began to practice blackouts for fear of bombing," said Cleveland historian John Grabowski. "Things were blacked out. The Statue of Liberty Light went off during the war, as matter of fact."

Cleveland even practiced smoke-outs to conceal the city: pumping smoke from factories to obscure lights as bombing targets.

A city that spent years trying to define itself and its skyline with the tower was in hiding.

Even after the war ended, the Terminal Tower remained unlit for decades until the late 1970s. Grabowski said the relighting could’ve been attributed to a push to rebrand as the city lost nearly a quarter of its population.

"They began to really work on the brand with a series of groupings of executives... They looked at the lakefront. They also came up with somewhat of an ill-fated plan to say, 'If New York is the Big Apple, Cleveland is a plum,'" he said with a laugh, referring to a 1981 marketing campaign to promote Cleveland.

As the city endured many attempts to change its image, the Tower has remained a persistent symbol of Cleveland.

The LED lights, which are now used to illuminate the building, were installed in 2014, allowing for more wide-ranging color schemes than the original spotlights, such as rainbows for Pride Month, team colors for the Cavaliers, Guardians and Browns and holiday light shows.

In the near future, Clevelanders can expect to see even more lights on the tower. Price said a new partnership with tourism bureau Destination Cleveland will light the entire exterior of the building; not just the crown.

And even if people don’t know what the lights represent, Price likes that the shows brighten people’s evenings.

"It's just a really, really cool thing to highlight the city, and it's just beautiful to look at," Price said. "It holds a dear place in a lot of our hearts knowing it’s been a part of the skyline for so long and knowing that it highlights Cleveland in many regards."

Originally published by WKSU/Ideastream Public Media on July 2, 2024.