Boston's chance to shine

PARIS IS known as the City of Light. New York is the city of light bulbs, hawking evening glitter on nearly every Manhattan street corner. Now Boston is taking a turn to shine.

Starting Oct. 1, Boston's nighttime skies will be lit up by illuminaleBoston 2008, in what organizers say would be the city's first light festival. It's a step toward a brighter Boston night that could help the city renew and redefine its civic identity.

It's also a good way for Boston to shake its reputation as a city that goes to sleep at 10 p.m., a place where "the night comes down with an incredibly heavy, small-town finality," as author Elizabeth Hardwick wrote in 1959 in Harper's Magazine.

Plans are for the festival to cast light on nine sites, including the Custom House, Rowes Wharf, South Station, and the Northern Avenue Bridge.

A group of local lighting designers is backing the effort, including Lana Nathe of Light Insight Design Studio, who argues that light is a 21st-century building material - one that can dazzle, as the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympics has shown.

Half of the $300,000 in needed funding has been raised. Costs and energy expenditures should be minimized by the use of efficient lights. Organizers say it's a way to show that creativity and sustainability can co-exist.

Efforts are also being made to keep some sites lit after the festival ends. And the city permitting process is underway, according to festival event manager A.J. Williams of Creative Events.

The festival should become an annual city event. Having residents and visitors see nighttime Boston in a different light could revitalize the city's sense of itself and its future.