The Christmas Tree Contest

There’s one thing you can say for sure about David Bronner–you never know what he’s going to think up next.  Who could have anticipated this Christmas tree thing or where it would lead. At the end of November of 1993, the RSA Union concrete frame was close to topping out at its full nine stories.  The Tower, on the other hand, having started later and then having encountered all those concrete problems, was barely at the second floor level.  Around December 1st, Bronner summoned me to his office and declared that the contractor on each building should immediately erect a Christmas decoration on their construction site.  I gulped but agreed to relay the command.

At the Union, Brice Construction accepted the decree and hurriedly got theirs in place on top of the concrete frame.  It was a two-story high framework on which they mounted colored lights so as to form a Christmas tree.  Because the RSA Union is only a block from WSFA-TV’s “Tower Cam”, the two-story tree on top of the nine-story structural frame received lots of play on the telly and it appeared quite impressive.

With Brice having capitulated so quickly and so successfully to Bronner’s demand, Ron Blount and I were able to bring considerable pressure on HH&N, whose brusque Sonny Phipps was reluctant to do anything. “Look at what Brice did!” we exhorted Sonny.  “Here you are the far bigger contractor and doing the taller building–what will you do?”  It took much cajoling, but we finally convinced Sonny that he should out-do Brice.  However, the Tower was at the bottom of the hill, its construction had progressed only two floors, and its site was eight blocks from Tower Cam.  On the grand scale of the contest, HH&N was starting out way behind.

Sonny’s solution was to fashion a three-story steel frame festooned with lights and to hoist it five stories into the sky on the boom of a construction crane rented especially for that purpose.  This display drew so much electric current that an ordinary extension cord would not suffice, so a 5-kw gasoline-powered generator was suspended below the decoration and hoisted into the air along with the tree lights.  The sight and sound of that enerator chugging away in the sky just below all those colored lights were unusual if not bizarre.  Still and all, Brice won the contest.

Another Christmas Challenge

One of Many Nighttime Experiments We Conducted to Judge Lighting Effects. This One Had the AmSouth Sign Turned Off, and the New Ridge Lights and Aviation Hazard Lights Turned On. The Lighting Controls Allowed So Many Combinations, That For the First Two Years, the Building Featured a Different Look for Each Night of the Week.

David Bronner was so enthralled with the holiday efforts of the two contractors that he called me back to his office right after Christmas and declared that he wanted a permanent lighted Christmas decoration installed on the roof of the Tower. “Something that requires no maintenance, and you just turn it on and off with a switch,” he explained.  “Do you know how difficult that would be?” I asked.  Bronner shrugged off that complaint with, “Then you solve it!”

Back at the office we thought and thought and investigated many mediums, but nothing seemed like it would withstand the crushing winds, rain and ice that occurs 24 floors up.  And it’s not like someone could crawl along changing light bulbs.  We considered neon tubing, but that seemed too frail.  Fiber optic light-rope was damage resistant but was probably too dim.

In March of 1994 we flew in a laser light expert from California and studied the feasibility of a laser light show on the side of the building.  Its projector would have been hidden in the roof parapet of the Alabama Center for Commerce, three blocks away.  The expert raised all manner of concern over our dubious concept.  Was this to be a static display?  Would it have a changeable program?  More than two colors?  After all this, the laser light concept was abandoned because it would produce an image on only one side of the building, and Dr. Bronner wanted his decoration to be visible from the north, east, south and west.

PH&J hoped the idea would die.  Perhaps Bronner would forget.  He did not.  In July of ‘94, he demanded a progress report, but there was no progress.  “Are you sure you want to do this?” I asked.

Two months later he asked again and this time I just up and told him that his concept was impractical, that we should just put some power outlets and hooks to support decorations that the RSA could erect and take down each year.  “That solution is unsatisfactory”, he shot back.  “Do I have to hire someone else to design my decoration on your building?” he demanded.

Faced with that ultimatum, we were forced to seriously consider a system which employed fiber optic technology, the so-called “rope-light”, and we presented a preliminary report to Dr. Bronner on September 24, 1994.  There was going to be so many adjunct problems to solve, that we predicted the cost would run a quarter of a million dollars.  I was sure that my estimate would put an end to the matter.  To my astonishment, The Man said to proceed.

By late Fall of ‘94, we were attacking the problem vigorously.  Our electrical consultant, Steve Conoly, persuaded the Lumenyte Company to dangle 25 feet of rope light off the 18th Floor of the Tower skeleton, and after dark, two carloads of us drove along Northern Boulevard and out I-65, to see how far away it might be visible.  The effect was not spectacular, but with no other choices available, we pressed on.

By July of the following year, the engineering was complete and all the related issues had been addressed.  In addition to the fiber cable, the installation took 20 metal halide light sources, four giant red aviation hazard lights, an automatic lighting control system for all exterior lights, an exhaust fan for the pyramid attic space, ladders and platforms in the attic just beneath the spire, and multiple stainless steel attachments all over the roof system.  The final cost was $313,000.

We fashioned the fiber optic rope to outline a giant triangular 75-foot tall green Christmas tree in a white bucket stand on each of the four faces of the roof pyramid.  Let’s just say the results are less than sensational, but we did incorporate many commendable features, not the least being the ability to save much electric power.

Amsouth Vs. Christmas

As the time for AmSouth’s occupancy of their premises in the Tower grew nigh, one of the bank’s assistant vice presidents, a Frances Ault, submitted to us details of the sign they proposed to erect on the panels PH&J had designed just below the pyramid roof on each side of the building.  I carefully checked to insure that none of the letters exceeded the six-foot height that had been stipulated in their lease.

I also noted that each of the four signs boasted a double lamping in each letter, and I persuaded the sign fabricator, who had prepared the details for the bank, to arrange the circuits so that one-half of the lamps could be on, or all of them could be on.  That way we could use our new lighting control system to dim the sign during the Christmas season.  Otherwise, the AmSouth sign would be so bright, it would overpower our fiber optic Christmas tree decoration.

AmSouth put its sign package out for bids and a ne’er-do-well sign company from Gadsden put in a proposal which slashed the cost at the expense of every refinement that had been specified–including the double lamping and my high-low switching.  This came across my desk again, and I dutifully called Francie Ault to complain about the change.  Apparently Francie had not taken in my hi-lo scheme and she became indignant at my proposal to dim the sign.

I patiently explained that we were dealing with forces bigger than both of us, and that without a dimming capability, I would be forced to deal with the AmSouth signs in another manner.  “Hi-lo is better an on-off,” I continued.  “At Christmas, your sign will go dark.” “You do that and AmSouth will sue both you and the RSA!” Francie shrieked.

AmSouth did not change its signage detail.  Yours truly did program the new sophisticated lighting control to turn off the bank sign when Dr. Bronner’s Christmas decoration came on.  Thus, at dark on the day after Thanksgiving of 1996, the giant green Christmas trees came on and all of the bank’s signs on top of the Tower went dark.  We held our breath to listen for an explosion from AmSouth, but it never came.

-Charles Humphries (“Peril and Intrigue Within Architecture”)

This is one of many RSA Tower stories. The rest can be found here.