Spanburgh: White Lights on Downtown Trees Could Add Lovely Year-Round Aesthetic

I normally don’t go to all of the Southampton Village trustee meetings, although I should. They are always interesting and invariably some sort of aesthetic issue always comes up. Since I was at their last meeting Jan. 13 to listen to an update regarding higher penalties for illegal demolitions of historic structures, I also got to hear comments from two or three of the village store owners/managers who said they wanted the little white lights in all of the trees in the business district to stay up indefinitely. Oh really?

What an interesting idea. While the shop owners/managers don’t wish them to be illuminated year round, they think “dark” periods and “illuminated” periods would be ideal, such as an “illuminated” summer season. What do you think?

I have been fortunate to travel to a lot of places around the world and these little white lights were present in almost all of them, especially Italy and France. They lined the heavily trafficked thoroughfares and added a lovely ambiance when strolling or sight-seeing in the evening. The Southampton Village shopkeepers believe the lights could contribute to livelier evening hours, for them and the restaurants. Other village business districts stay open longer hours in the summer, like Westhampton Beach and East Hampton, where our village has mostly been a "closed after 6:00" sort of place.

Our village, I think, has been the only area to employ these sparkly wonders, but thus far they have been associated only with the holiday season. Coupled with the white lights decorating the stores themselves, they have been a huge hit and the village has received "oohs" and "ahhs" from a wide range of residents and visitors. So should they stay up?

The person hired to hang most of the village tree lights said the lights will last until the next holiday season. Trees expand when they grow, so the present lights will last until they expand to such a degree that they begin to break, which would be next year at Christmastime. He did not mention any detriment to the trees.

Some board members wondered if the lights staying illuminated throughout the year would take away from the splendor of the holiday season. Others wondered if it would just be tacky. I think, because we are talking about just the tree lights being up year round, without the holiday lights decorating businesses, and because the trees will have leaves, this could be a really lovely and European sort of downtown aesthetic.

Again, there were only a handful of shopkeepers at the meeting — , , — but all were in favor of this idea. The board asked that more merchants weigh in by the next meeting. So we’ll see what transpires. Stay tuned.