Columbia opens its gates to the community with the annual return of Morningside Lights. Volunteers light up the neighborhood with homemade lanterns inspired by the theme, “TIMEFRAME 1965”.

Walking through the gates of Columbia alongside students and neighborhood families, I felt a true sense of community love that has been rare since the campus restrictions that began nearly two years ago. Volunteers of all ages came together on Saturday night to celebrate the Morningside Lights procession. The annual tradition, now in its 14th year, transformed College Walk and the surrounding streets into a stage of glowing lanterns, music, and celebration.

Morningside Lights is organized each year by Alex Kahn and Sophia Michahelles, co-artistic directors of the Processional Arts Workshop, in collaboration with Columbia’s Arts Initiative and Miller Theatre. Over the course of a week, artists, volunteers, and neighbors work side by side in free public workshops to build paper lanterns that are later paraded through the neighborhood.

This year’s theme, “TIMEFRAME 1965,” invited participants to look back sixty years to a pivotal moment in American history and the arts. Lantern-makers paid homage to the images and culture of the past, highlighting everything from fashion and music to politics and social change. The sixty lanterns on display each captured a different moment of 1965, creating a mobile museum of creativity.

The procession began in Morningside Park and made its way through the neighborhood before ending at Columbia’s College Walk. Along the route, viewers gathered on sidewalks to admire the glowing lanterns. At the end of the procession, community members had the opportunity to meet the artists and learn more about the stories behind each creation.

One of the lanterns highlighted the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Its creators, Damion Lopez and his family, explained the personal significance of the piece. 

“My mom-in-law is the one that has done this so many times,” Lopez said. “We come out as a family to do this.” 

The family explained that the Voting Rights Act felt especially relevant in the current political moment. “In 1965 the Voting Rights Act was established, and that’s very important to us, especially right now with the current environment. This is under attack, so we thought it would be perfect to do it as a part of 1965.”

They also created a lantern celebrating the Black Arts Movement, another historically significant event of the time period.

For Lopez and other participants, the event is as much about building community as it is about art. Morningside Lights highlights how collaborative art can strengthen community ties and unite Columbia with the wider Morningside Heights neighborhood.

College walk lit by lanterns via Bwarchives

lanterns via Bwogger