Project aim to light up Pan-Am Centennial
March 18, 2001 | The Buffalo News
Recapturing the glow of the Pan American Exposition is the goal of a project to string thousands of tiny white lights on the buildings that now occupy the site of the exposition of 100 years ago
Lydon, a deputy fire commissioner and licensed architect, is a member of the Pan Am Centennial Committee.
He said he was inspired by the 1901 exposition, when Buffalo had the most electric lights of any city in the world
‘’We were one of the first cities to show off what electricity could do, and I thought it would be a wonderful gesture to light it up the same way…create a magical setting,’’ he said.
The plan is to distribute two 50 –foot strings, each with 100 lights, to each of the 600 buildings-the vast majority of them houses-with some of the bigger ones getting three strings.
“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us”