NEW YORK – When the Empire State Building lights up, reaching 102 stories into the Manhattan sky, people lift their eyes and guess what that night’s colours might mean – a holiday, a charitable cause, maybe a Yankees win or a birthday.
But sometimes, colour turns to controversy.
Tens of thousands of people are now in an uproar about the building owner’s refusal to light New York City’s tallest skyscraper in blue and white to honour Mother Teresa in August on what would be her 100th birthday.
“The Empire State Building celebrates many cultures and causes in the world community with iconic lightings, and has a tradition of lightings for the religious holidays of Easter, Eid al Fitr (marking the end of Ramadan), Hanukkah, and Christmas,” owner Anthony E. Malkin said in a statement.
But the real estate mogul said the privately owned building “has a specific policy against any other lighting for religious figures or requests by religions and religious organisations.”
The lay advocacy group Catholic League, which requested the lights for Mother Teresa, countered that individual religious figures have, in fact, been posthumously honoured at the Empire State Building: Cardinal John O’Connor in 2000, with the red and white colours of his position; Pope John Paul II in 2005, with the tower lights symbolically extinguished; and famed Baptist preacher Martin Luther King Jr. with red, black and green.
An email sent to Malkin spokesman Daniel Hernandez Lyon asking about religious figures being honored was not answered Wednesday.
The League first asked for the lights in February and was denied.
Anyone can apply to have the building illuminated for what’s dear to them. But the privately owned landmark considers selection “a privilege, not an entitlement,” according to the website with the application form.
Applications are evaluated by the Empire State Building Co., which says online that decisions are made “at the sole discretion of the ownership and management.”
More than 40,000 people have signed a petition in support of the special lights for Mother Teresa.
Cindy Caprio, an aspiring young actor who works as a hostess at a bar facing the Empire State Building, says she spends her night shift at the door greeting guests – and seeing the colours above her change daily.
“I don’t always know what the colors mean, but I look up every day, and I love it,” she said today. “I can usually figure it out for the Fourth of July or the Yankees. And I sometimes guess right.”
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