A snowflake will glitter brighter on Fifth Avenue

Good morning. It is Friday. Today we’ll find out how one kind of snowflake came to be overhauled and why it’s been 655 days—and counting—since a significant amount of a different kind of snowflake was spotted in Central Park.

This newsletter is about a snowflake that has had some cosmetic work done.

It is not a snowflake that dances from the sky, glittering like a diamond in the pale winter light, only to melt after turning into a dirty mud. This snowflake glitters from a height of 15 meters. It’s the giant illuminated snowflake floating over the intersection of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street.

“It needed to be redone,” says George Stonbely, the advertising entrepreneur overseeing the snowflake.

Therefore, the 16,500 crystal lamps were cleaned. More than 600 double-sided miniature LEDs were installed, tripling the number on the laterals. The halogen lamps around the steel and chrome core were replaced by projection LEDs. And the core was polished.

“It still has the same beautiful shape and structure as when it was designed in the early 2000s,” says Stonbely.

But now the snowflake has glare. After it turns on for the season on Sunday afternoon, there will be a few minutes of light shows at the beginning of each hour, Stonbely said.

The all-LED configuration made the snowflake programmable in ways not previously possible, when it was limited to on and off – and just one color, white. “We want to introduce color slowly and not make it look like what I did in Times Square,” said Stonbely, who installed more than 60 Spectacolor signs there and elsewhere around the world beginning in the 1970s. “This is more subtle.”

As in previous years, the snowflake is anchored to the four buildings at the corners, suspended and stabilized by cables. The snowflake is designed to resist wind and rain, as well as the build-up of ice.

And the power-generating electricity? Stonbely said it comes from one of the four buildings.

The snowflake is the second to occupy the spot. The original was donated to Stonbely by Douglas Leigh, another maker of striking displays. Leigh was behind famous Midtown installations such as the smoking Camel sign in Times Square, the Super Suds laundry detergent sign with 3,000 “floating” soap bubbles, and a 100-foot-tall Pepsi-Cola waterfall above a clothing store.

Stonbely said Leigh apparently got the idea for the snowflake when he saw cables across an intersection in Switzerland, with lights that looked like icicles. “He saw that and thought about it, instead of the icicles, what if we put a giant snowflake?” Stonely said.

Leigh died in 1999 at the age of 92, 15 years after the snowflake became a year-end fixture on Fifth Avenue. Leigh donated the snowflake to Stonbely, who transferred ownership to a foundation and dedicated it to UNICEF, which he said had raised more than $65 million through the annual Snowflake Ball over the years. Now the foundation has licensed the snowflake to a new nonprofit that will raise money for humanitarian organizations and arts groups. Stonbely has collaborated with the Fifth Avenue Association to line up donors to support the renovation and installation of the snowflake.

Sunday’s lighting will take place as the association coordinates the closure of an 11-block stretch of the avenue on the following three Sundays from noon to 6 p.m under the city’s Open Streets program.

Jazz artists and food vendors will perform against a backdrop of 150 pine trees lining the sidewalks. Passersby will smell something when they look at the snowflake: the trees smell.

Weather

Prepare for possible rain through the evening, with temperatures in the low 50s. There is a chance of light rain and temperatures in the mid 40s late this evening.

ALTERNATE PARKING

In effect until December 8 (Immaculate Conception).

The latest Metro news

Speaking of snowflakes – real snowflakes:

Central Park hasn’t recorded a major snowfall since February 13 last year. And it’s been 655 days – and counting – since an inch of snow was recorded in a single day, almost double the previous record of 383 days, which ended in March 1998.

Only 6.5 centimeters of snow fell in Central Park last winter, the smallest amount of snow since records began in 1869.

One snowstorm that started on February 27 had a two-day total of almost two inches, but because daily data is recorded from midnight to midnight, less than an inch fell each day, keeping the sub-inch streak going . . In a normal winter, Central Park sees almost two feet of snow for the entire season.

Luisana Perez, 28, said that while walking through the park on Wednesday, she remembered snow piling up as high as parked cars when she was a child in Harlem. But last year—when temperatures topped 60 degrees between Christmas Day and New Year’s Day—she only needed one layer, and even then she was sweaty.

“I am witnessing the city slowly getting warmer and warmer,” she said. “It doesn’t feel very Christmassy.”

What about this year? It’s likely a matter of when, not if, snow will accumulate in the park. James Tomasini, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, doesn’t expect the snowless period to last all winter.

Storm systems that hit New York City typically have a warmer side and a colder side. If the storm moves along the coast but too far inland – as most of last year’s storms did – New York will end up on the warmer side of the storm and receive less snow. This phenomenon may become more common when the overall weather pattern is dictated by La Niña, which pushes the jet stream north.

This year, the winter season is starting with something different – ​​an El Niño pattern – and that could impact whether snow comes to New York. During El Niño winters there is usually an increase in the number of coastal storms that form off the east coast. A storm track southeast of New York over the ocean is beneficial, Tomasini said, because the city will be on the colder side of the storm.

METROPOLITAN diary

Helping hands

Dear Diary:

I was on a busy southbound #1 train traveling from Riverdale to Midtown. Opposite me stood a young woman with long curly hair and long synthetic nails.

I watched her out of the corner of my eye as she tried to open a can of soda. Her nails made the action impossible.