The following article is written by Courtney Hansen for the Rahr-West Art Forward series.
City Hall’s elves (aka the Public Infrastructure Department) have been busy preparing to deck the streets with holiday cheer!
Over the past couple weeks, the team has checked every bulb on the city’s holiday lights to ensure they’ll sparkle and glow this season. This week, the week before Thanksgiving, they began the exciting part – actually decorating! This process takes city staff about five to six days to complete.
For years, downtown decorations have included colorfully lit trees and garland adorned with green lights on light poles in an alternating pattern. Green and red banners with festive holiday phrases are also a fixture on many of these poles. In Harbor Town, the light poles down Crawford Blvd and Harbor Town Blvd are also decorated. Each pole is wrapped in either a red or green garland, alternating both down and across the street for a festive pattern. In addition, there are also a series of colorfully lit trees placed on corners of Calumet Drive, Crawford Blvd and Rapids Road.
The newest addition to the city’s holiday décor is a large silver tree which is placed in Burger Boat Park, just south of the 8th Street bridge, each year. This sparkly downtown accessory was purchased by the Downtown Manitowoc committee in 2017. The committee raised the funds, selected the color of the lights, and chose the star.
Every year the first display of lights occurs the evening of the Lakeshore Holiday Parade, this year on Wednesday, November 24. Early that morning, a team from the Public Infrastructure Department will head out to double-check that all of the lights are ready for their big reveal later in the day.
Don’t miss your chance to see the city lit up for the first time this holiday season. The 33rd Annual Lakeshore Holiday Parade kicks off in our downtown at 6:30 pm next week Wednesday.
Here are some photos from the 2019 Lake Coast Local Holiday Parade.
