Pimp My Skyline

Hate it if that's what floats your boat .. but in my opinion, the tower is what distinguishes our skyline from the coutless other North American, high rise oriented cities. It also acts as a lighthouse .. a guiding beacon if you will. As for the lights .. perhaps a techno party is in order.

I dunno.. I kinda like it. I don't mind a little cheese now and then. Adds a pretty dramatic exclamation point to the night sky, and works somewhat well with the purple illumination of the Rogers Centre.

"no other tower looks like it"
You mean apart from the space needle?

I saw it last night and I love it! (As did my friends)

It's fun, playful, and hopefully pisses the hell out of all those lameos in the Waterfront condos complex. And yes, it would be interesting to see if the lights make a difference on the birds.

(And I'm excited to see what the view is like from the Don Valley--to get the colourful tower in with all the other skyscrapers, eeee!)

You can see the CN tower from so far away. I remember when I was doing my degree in Peterborough that I would be riding the greyhound down to Toronto for the weekend and I would be able to see the CN Tower on a clear day from Highway 115 (This is Northwest of Whitby or Oshawa or both).

I wonder if the new lights will make the tower more visible from far away. It may be a beacon for pilgrimaging country folk.

Watching the tower out my window across the street I was able to see the full range of colours (including a tie-dye version that was interesting to say the least) I thought some of the colours used made it look very cool. The White and Yellow make it look like it is lit from within the tower from the base with the light streaming towards the top, with the top acting as a beacon.

My girlfriend and I then walked down to Harbourfront Centre where we noticed many tourists and locals with their heads pointed upwards at the Tower. It reminded me a bit of standing near the Eiffel Tower and watching all the visitors stand in awe. Combined with Pulse Front (which in my opinion should be made permanent from a tourism point of view), it's a pretty neat thing to see at the waterfront.

I'll find out this weekend, but it'll be interesting to see if you can see it lit up from St Catharines/Grimsby on a clear night.

I can see the CN Tower from my living room, and I enjoyed the lights. Toronto-the-boring sometimes needs a little gaudiness to liven it up a little bit.

And no, I don't like souped up Honda Civics.

SO. AMAZING.

Living in the shadow of the Empire State Building made me look forward to the sunset every day because I wondered, "What colors will it be tonight?"

I hope the CN Tower does a lightshow for Nuit Blanche :)

I heard they'll do different light shows for special days, like red and white for Canada Day and christmas colours (red/green) for Christmas.

Which of course only means we have debates about preference for certain religious winter holidays coming in 5 month's time...

I think it's awesome. Finally joining, the Eiffel Tower, Empire State Building, and virtually every tall tower or building in Asia is a good thing.

A city stuck in its past is finally taking a step forward and updating its landmark for the new century. Cheers Toronto.

As has been said before, more please.

I like it too, and since I am well known for hating everything, I suspect Marc is all alone on this one.

I'm not opposed to putting lights on buildings or even on the tower, but it's the execution that sucks. They overdid it. The tower is sleek and simple, but at night, it looks like one of those things at the fair where you hit the pad with a mallet to try and ring the bell. It's totally out of context with the rest of the skyline—even the purple lights on the Dome.

It probably would have worked better if they lit the bottom section of the tower from below (like this, with coloured lights) rather than the "zippers" up the sides. It looks more appropriate for Hong Kong or Dubai, but maybe I'll get used to it. I just think it looks really tacky, as if they just strapped some neon tubing onto it.

I love it.. If only there was some way to convince them to leave up the installation at harbourfront as well.

Man I love shiny things. :)

If they've wired and programmed it as they should, they can always tone down the vertical stripes to just a few (or even a single) row and put all the attention up top.

I can't wait to see this when I get back.

I like it. It's a bit crazy ... but it definately livens a dead area up. And hey, in the daytime the tower will still look specatular under the sunshine as it always does (smog cloud aside). The Beacon for our great city.

and what was that about it needs a techno party? haha, I concur

Good lord. Whose idiotic, tacky idea was this?

Can't this city do anything that's stylish, elegant and classy? It's becoming so tacky with all those cheap condos and now the CN Tower is going to look tacky too.

I call upon New Mind Space to organize a crazy glowstick rave at the base of the tower, as previously suggested!

Almost everyone I've talked to thinks the new lights look great - at the very least they have great potential. I think some people are judging a bit too harshly, after having only seen Monday's night of solid-colour "testing," which proably has nothing to do with how the lights will be programmed on a daily basis.

Some of the multi-coloured effects tested Tuesday night were quite spectacular, including a particularly beautiful shimmering rainbow effect. Its almost as though the Tower has been wrapped in a chameleon skin that allows for many, many different looks.

I think this is going to be a big hit when it opens permanently.

News from New York -- the Empire State Building is going through the same change from the old floodlights to multicolor LEDs. Will be interesting to see what they do with it - so far, I think they are commited to static colors, as New Yorkers would puke if the thing turned into a gaudy mess. Given that the CN Tower was always terribly underlit and it a little more techno to begin with this is a fantastic improvement. The only sad thing is that it will literally turned on the moment the CN Tower is no longer the tallest freestanding structure in the world. (Go screw yourself, Burj Dubai...)

How long until the lights spell out "Drink Coke"? I just thought of this, and I can't be the first.

I have to say I like the lights. It's been years that I have stared out at a dark concrete skyline everynight. Toronto has the countries economy, maybe now we'll get some of the nightlife they have in Montreal!
I don't think the lighting sequences will be as agressive once they are done testing. It seems like a complicated system there are lots of things to figure out. I'm sure it won't look like a gong show on a regular evening.

Hopefully this will take some of the tight-ass-ness out of the lame night-time skyline.

PS - I am one of those Waterfront condo people.

ZOMG the CN tower has been transformed by installation art!

LED blinkies from Boston?

What?!?

Call the bombsquad!!!