Light + Time is not on my side

I’m not switching sides, exactly, and I know it will provide comfort to the enemy, but I can’t live this lie any longer. I have to say it: I don’t like the Light + Time Tower.

I tried desperately to like the tower, that controversial and unconventional sculpture sitting in the middle of Raleigh’s Capital Boulevard. For a long time, I was sure I did like it. Raleigh Mayor Tom Fetzer didn’t, and that was enough for me in the beginning. Anything Fetzer doesn’t like automatically gets my sympathy or vote. He’s my political opposite, so I hold Fetzer in the same regard many people hold The News & Observer’s political endorsements: Once I learn whom or what he likes, I lean the other way.

So for a while, I was happy when I drove on Capital Boulevard and saw the tower jutting up from the median. It had annoyed Fetzer and that was good; but I also saw it as evidence that Raleigh was becoming a big city, a place that adorns its public places and understands the value of monuments and art.

I no longer live in North Raleigh, however, so I don’t drive on Capital Boulevard much anymore. (I don’t miss the traffic, but I do regret not seeing that state government building that has “Oral Hygiene” carved over the door. I’ve always wanted to work there so I could tell people I have an office in the Oral Hygiene building. I’m not sure why, but this is very appealing to me.) So when I drove down Capital Boulevard on a recent errand, it was like seeing the tower for the first time.

What I saw was a clunky, homely collection of steel rods and panels. It seemed dull and tarnished, and its panels didn’t deliver the promised prism effect – having sunlight be

“literally shattered on its surface,” as its co-creator put it.

What’s worse, it looked like it was supposed to be a clunky collection of rods and panels. And in the median of this busy, charmless road, that’s no virtue. It just makes the tower easy to overlook.

In short, it didn’t look like art.

I have a friend with particularly skewed sensibilities – he once reviewed a restaurant by declaring, “Well, it was overpriced but at least the food was bad” – who might say this about the tower: “Well, it may be in a bad spot and not work properly, but at least it cost a lot.” (If you’re a Raleigh resident, the bill was 51,000 of your taxpayer dollars, by the way.)

It’s troubling to have to confess this, because I like sculpture and monuments. If you put it on a slab of rock and drop it in the middle of a park, I like it. Civil War soldiers, dead presidents, giant acorns, I like them all. I even like the statue of News & Observer patriarch Josephus Daniels across the street from my office, even though I can’t figure out why the sculptor posed him waving. My only guess is that old Josephus must have been highly regarded in his time for his ability to hail a cab.

I also like most avant-garde efforts. Do you remember Christo? He’s the guy who did things like surround the islands in Miami’s Biscayne Bay with pink plastic, or erect a miles-long fabric fence over some California hills. There was no history being honored, but I didn’t care. Those things were raw visual impact.

The Light + Time Tower, however; does neither. It makes no reference to history and doesn’t have the scale to dominate the landscape. It doesn’t even do that sunlight-shattering thing it’s supposed to do. It’s a disappointment.

But enough complaining. The money’s spent, the tower is there and that’s that. I’d better stop before I find myself agreeing with Fetzer on something else.