UPDATE: After this column published, a trip to downtown Modesto after dark Thursday revealed that Public Works had fixed the issue and the bulbs were back ablaze. Let there be light, Modesto.
You know when folks say, “The lights are on, but nobody’s home?” Well, Modesto’s most famous landmark is having a perplexing variation on that problem.
The lights aren’t on, and apparently nobody is paying attention to the Modesto Arch.
Since at least January, the lighted arch with its famed slogan “Water Wealth Contentment Health” has been repeatedly dark at night. The 75-foot-wide, 25-foot-tall span has lit the way at the intersection of Ninth and I streets to welcome people into the city since its christening in 1912.
But on recent (and not so recent) trips downtown during the evening I noticed something puzzling. The bright bulbs which are normally ablaze across the iconic structure were off.
When I first saw this on Jan. 25 of this year, I snapped a picture while traveling under the arch to verify what I was seeing. How weird, right? Must be a temporary glitch, right? I’m sure they’ll fix it soon, right?
Not being much of a night owl these days, I forgot about it until the next time I was driving through downtown after dark months later. And then the next time. Each time the lights still weren’t on. Then late last month, I had had enough. What gives?
The City of Modesto owns and operates the arch, and is in charge of its maintenance. So I reached out with a simple query: Why aren’t the lights on?
And the reply?
“Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We are now aware of the issue, and the Public Works team is working to resolve it,” said city spokeswoman Sonya Severo in an email response to The Modesto Focus Thursday.
Um, what? I guess city officials and Public Works staff aren’t big night owls either, because it took a journalist’s email to alert them to the ongoing issue.
The Modesto Arch is part of our newsroom’s logo – so one could argue we’re especially sensitive about its well-being. But you don’t have to take my word on its beloved status in the community.
The city has not one, but two smaller replica arches – one at the corner of Briggsmore Avenue and Sisk Road that has welcomed people to the city’s northeastern shopping corridor since 2002 and one at Crows Landing and Hatch roads that has welcomed people to south Modesto with a friendly “bienvenidos” since 2015.
Citizens even rallied for the arch’s 100th birthday in 2012 to pay for a major refurbishment of the landmark. Led by the Modesto Chamber of Commerce, the renovation effort raised more than $100,000 for repairs and upgrades including replacing its original 696 incandescent bulbs with new, tougher LED lights. The span was also sandblasted and repainted to its current green from its original Golden Gate-esque red-orange. The city celebrated the project’s completion with a 100-car parade while some 2,000 people cheered as they switched the lights back on.
Heck, even rock stars know about the Modesto Arch. Over the years it has appeared in music videos and album art for the likes of Macklemore and Hole, respectively.
The original arch was envisioned in 1911 by the Modesto Businessmens’ Association (a precursor to the chamber of commerce) to attract attention and draw people into the city. At the time volunteers raised some $1,200 to get it done, and it was dedicated on March 9, 1912.
A public slogan contest was held to pick what would be written in lights, and true to Modesto’s cheeky nature the winning entry by popular vote was, “Nobody’s got Modesto’s goat.” We are the city that named its baseball team the “Modesto Nuts,” after all. But calmer heads prevailed and “Water Wealth Contentment Health” has been the city motto ever since.
So how could we have let such a source of civic pride go dark for so long? And when will it be back to its light and bright glory?
“(T)he Public Works team is working to diagnose the issue and will develop a strategy for performing what repairs are necessary,” Severo wrote.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness, but only Public Works can get the light back. Let’s hope they figure out what’s wrong and fix it sooner, rather than later.
Modesto, and the world, could use the light.
Marijke Rowland is the editor of The Modesto Focus, a project of the nonprofit Central Valley Journalism Collaborative. Contact her at marijke@cvlocaljournalism.org.
