As he drove along Peachtree Street in Midtown Atlanta on Tuesday, David Posluszny glanced toward the famed Margaret Mitchell House and noticed that a typical white glow was missing.
The Midtown resident, who lived about a block away until June, was used to seeing giant sparkling stars and multicolored trees lining the intersection at Peachtree and 10th streets. Those lights had always transported the 58-year-old into a winter wonderland during daily walks with his dog and provided a sense of magic during the holiday season.
But some of that magic is gone this year.
“Christmas is a holiday I celebrate, and (the lights) just made this a special thing,” Posluszny told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Wednesday. “And I just felt like, wow, they didn’t do anything here. It’s really a big drop from what’s been happening over the past several years.”
Credit: Midtown Alliance
Credit: Midtown Alliance
Midtown Bright, the annual winter lights display, was cut back this year due to budget reasons following the Midtown Improvement District’s purchase of a 4-acre undeveloped lot on 14th Street that will become a public park, Midtown Alliance President and CEO Kevin Green told the AJC this week. The debt from that $46 million purchase led officials to have to cut costs, which included part of the lights display that had been in place and growing since at least 2010.
“We’re scaling back a holiday program as part of a bigger vision for Midtown on the community, to create a space that’s going to be enjoyed year-round for generations,” said Green, whose organization is tasked with developing the 14th Street property. “I wish we had unlimited funding to do everything that we wanted to do, but no organization does, and so that requires some hard decisions.
“But I feel good about it. I think the rest of the team feels good about it.”
Midtown Bright had gradually evolved over the years. Lauren Radman, Midtown Alliance’s project manager of art and activation, said the group wanted a unique display for the area, so they put multicolored lights on trees and stars along Peachtree Street to provide a festive experience.
By 2018, the display started to expand and eventually featured hundreds of thousands of LED lights wrapped around more than 100 trees. Each tree usually gets its own color of lights, and the Moravian stars, chosen because of their connection to multiple holiday traditions, range from 3 feet to 23 feet high.
Last year, 125 trees and 24 giant shining stars were placed at 13 sites over a 2-mile stretch from Peachtree Pointe to Emory University Hospital Midtown.
Only six of those sites remain this year, for a total of 43 decorated trees and eight stars. The farthest northern display is now at Pershing Point Park, where a massive, mature ginkgo tree is wrapped in different colored lights. Other locations are at 15th and Peachtree, the Midtown Art Walk, the Fox Theatre, Bank of America Plaza and Emory hospital, where the bright lights wrap around eight trees and one star.
There were additional sites last year at the World Athletes Monument; Peachtree Place; and Peachtree at 11th, 10th, 7th and 3rd streets and Ponce de Leon Avenue.
Radman said she learned about the changes in July as crews were beginning to install the lights, which get hooked up to power in November. The program cost about $425,000 in 2024 but roughly $150,000 this year, officials said.
Credit: Ben Hendren
Credit: Ben Hendren
The project has been a labor of love for Radman, who has managed it for nearly a decade. She said she takes pride in seeing photos of people in front of their lights at night with their family or canine companions.
“It’s been really special to see how it gets incorporated into people’s holiday traditions,” Radman said. “And I know it’s a little disappointing not to have as much coverage this year, but I hope that they still have a lovely holiday season and we can figure out how to bring it back next year.”
Without providing specifics, Green said Midtown Alliance would be coordinating with different partners along the Peachtree Street route to see if they could share the costs for the program, with those conversations likely taking place in 2026.
Until then, he hopes residents will still enjoy the reduced winter display.
“We’re still gonna have plenty of pop,” Green said, “just not as much as we’ve had in the past.”
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