Project Restore

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Events

2008 Holiday Tree Lighting Ceremony

Project Restore co-hosted a joyous reception at Los Angeles City Hall in celebration of the holiday season. The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local No. 11 (IBEW) and the Los Angeles County Chapter of the National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA) generously donated a fifty-foot-tall tree to officially kick-off the holiday season. A number of dignitaries, community leaders, and sponsors shared a night of fun-filled caroling and entertainment provided by . Miss Kelley Foster-Villalobos, Allison Iraheta, Hope Institute of Music, A Little Dickens Carolers, and the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks children choirs: Harmony Project Choir at EXPO Center, Glassell Park Child Care Center, Echo Park Child Care Center.

The Lindberg Beacon

(43 K)

In 1992, Project Restore restored the Charles Lindbergh Beacon, an aircraft guidance light which sat atop City Hall from 1928 until World War II. It was the crowning glory to Los Angeles City Hall after its completion.

Commissioned by the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce as a gift to the city, it was first illuminated by President Calvin Coolidge who pressed a telegraph key from the White House. Its light was visible for 60 miles and provided guidance for pilots approaching Los Angeles airport in the days before the advent of radios and radar for arial navigation. It was on all the time and revolved six times a minute.

The vintage aircraft guidance light was discovered in a city warehouse by Project Restore and the Department of General Services. The restoration of the beacon, funded by the Cultural Affairs Department, included complete electrical rewiring and metal restoration. The lighted beacon will be returned to the top of City Hall after the building has been seismically rehabilitated.

Project Restore held a rededication ceremony for the restored Charles Lindbergh Beacon on April 22, 1992 in the Bradley Terminal at LAX. Several hundred people gathered to celebrate the restoration of the beacon. Guests included several aviators who had once used the Lindbergh Beacon to guide their planes to safety. Mayor Tom Bradley was present to turn the switch which lit up the newly refurbished beacon. Master of Ceremonies Huell Howser presented a half-hour special on KCET that evening on the Lindbergh Beacon and its rededication.

(28 k) (31 k)

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