February 4, 2005

Lights!
By Arthur R. Vinsel, Community News Reporter

     A crowd of nearly 1,000 San Pedrans and visiting well-wishers gasped and gushed as dignitaries lit 160 piercing blue lights outlining the Vincent Thomas Bridge amid bursting aerial fireworks to herald conclusion of a $1.1 million, 17-year campaign to get the job done.
     Mary Vincent, widow of the late, longtime Assemblyman Vincent Thomas, was among the VIPs throwing the light switch.
     “Sixty years ago he had this dream. Some viewed his dream as fanatical, others as visionary,” remarked Vince Thomas, son of the late California legislator who served 38 years in office.
     “What a great day for our city and the local communities,” declared 15th District City Councilwoman Janice Hahn, whose brother Mayor James Hahn preceded her at the microphone and described her as a relentless backer of the long-delayed bridge lighting project.
     “The people of the Harbor Area are very fortunate to have elected me Mayor, because I brought my sister Janice along,” he quipped. “She stayed on my case day after day to get this bridge lit.”
     The Goodyear Blimp circled overhead, its computer lighted message board flashing: “Vincent Thomas Bridge, you light up our lives.”
     Vincent Thomas Bridge Lighting Committee Chair Louis Dominguez, whose first job out of college was aide to the late Assemblyman Thomas, said the councilwoman summoned him to a sit down in her office days after her election.
     Because the towering, emerald green bridge is state property, then-Assemblyman Alan Lowenthal, (D-Long Beach) was instrumental in securing support in Sacramento for the campaign begun in 1988 by Marston Chavez and his lawyer wife Juanita.
     Traffic began clogging up in mid-afternoon as guests hurried to the Cruise Ship Promenade beside the bridge, where the San Pedro High School marching band and flag squad performed at 4 p.m., prior to the long-anticipated event. For many, it was a first-time visit to the landscaped area since the first Promenade link opened.
     “It is so beautiful down here now, I can’t believe it. This is so unlike our town, or unlike the way San Pedro has been,” said Ellen McCafferty, whose three-story Beacon Street home affords a view of the bridge.
     “If this was in Berlin, I’d be impressed,” added husband Jay McCafferty, an L.A. Harbor College art professor whose paintings are collected nationally. “The fact that it’s here just blows me away.”
     Gasps and cheers greeted the 160 cobalt blue LED lights that flashed on about 5:40 p.m., as aerial fireworks exploded over and around the bridge, probably a real shock to truck drivers rumbling overhead in mid-span. The lights are powered by a 4.5 kilowatt solar panel atop the city’s DWP plant on Swinford Street under the bridge. Operating costs will be minimal and these modern lights last tens of thousands of hours.
     The turnout was a typical cross-section of San Pedro from the elderly with canes and walkers to scrambling kids anxious to take home souvenir wooden bridge replicas. One local, a tall man wearing a laurel wreath affair over his ears, fashioned of Christmas tinsel, gave majestic salutes to passengers aboard the adjacent Vision of the Seas cruise ship.
     “Things are turning out so positive now! It seems like everything is beginning to go well in San Pedro,” observed Susan Rapier, who rushed down when she got off work.
     “They should have waited until it got a little darker at least for the fireworks,” said Sue Diaz, a 21-year resident of the community.
     “And just think,” said a young father to a girl toddler exclaiming over the beauty of the LEDs’ blue glare and pyrotechnic bombs bursting in air, “In April, the Disneyland ship will be here.”
     “Yaaay!” she bellowed.

Mayor James Hahn, Councilwoman Janice Hahn, Representative Juanita Millender McDonald, and Senator Alan Lowenthal join community leaders in throwing the switch on the Vincent Thomas Bridge. Photo: Bernard Kane.

The Vincent Thomas Bridge was lit at a public ceremony on January 30. The solar powered LED lights will be on from dusk til midnight. Photo: Bernard Kane.