The lights on Philly’s skyscrapers are often matching, and that’s no accident

As a senior at Drexel University, Madeline DelVescovo said she spends a lot of time walking back and forth from campus to her apartment on 32nd Street.

One thing DelVescovo always notices is how the skyscrapers seem to match their lights with one another.

Wondering if this was purely coincidence, DelVescovo reached out to Curious Philly, The Inquirer’s forum where readers ask us questions, and our reporters hunt down the answers.

“Do building managers for the major skyscrapers across the city coordinate their light colors?” she asked.

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Yes. When the skyline is matching, it’s not by accident, but how and who decides when to turn the entire skyline pink, red, green?

You might think this is all the city’s doing, but actually, the city has nothing to do with it, said Kevin Lessard, communications director for the Department of Commerce.

Instead, building managers take the initiative in changing light colors or are asked to do so through the Building Owners and Managers Association Philadelphia, which represents property managers of all commercial building types. BOMA Philadelphia currently has 297 building members.

Among them are managers of some of the most prominent buildings that participate in the coordinated lightings, including One Liberty Place, Two Liberty Place, the BNY Mellon Center, and the FMC Tower.

“We get emails from different campaigns, charities, and sports teams, and then we’ll send those emails out to the skyline buildings requesting them to light up a certain color from this date to this date," said Kristine Kiphorn, BOMA’s executive director.

She acknowledged that not all lighting goes through BOMA. When Kobe Bryant died and the entire city was lit up purple and yellow, individual building managers coordinated the effort.

“It was beautiful, but that wasn’t our doing," Kiphorn said. “The building managers sort of just knew, they’re so community-minded and it’s a great thing to see.”

Building lights can be changed at each manager’s discretion because the properties are privately owned.

Edward Siegler, operations manager for Two Liberty Place, said the first time he spoke of coordinating lights with One Liberty Place, he was told that it had been attempted before and it didn’t really work out. "But we did it,” Siegler said, "and for the past two years, we’ve been really good with working together on this.”

Siegler said both buildings take lighting requests on a first-come, first-serve basis from organizations like CBS3, or Philadelphia sports teams. Then, either Siegler will touch base with Cory Gunselman, the operations manager for One Liberty, or vice versa.

To submit a request, email your preferred illumination dates to BOMA Philadelphia at info@bomaphila.com at least three weeks in advance, and give a three- to five sentence explanation detailing your campaign, organization, occasion, and reason for the request.