Oct. 17, 2016 By Hannah Wulkan
The Sunnyside Arch has lost its shine.
The lights stopped working earlier in the year, and various community leaders are working to get them repaired.
“The arch lights have been a long, ongoing project,” said Sunnyside Shines director Rachel Thieme.
Thieme said that Sunnyside Shines brought in a company to inspect the lights over the summer, and that during the inspection they were able to fix some, but not all, of the lights.
“We are now exploring options with what it would take to replace the lights completely,” Thieme said. She added that there is no plan in place at the moment, but that she has contacted Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer and Queens Borough President Melinda Katz to see if they could help.
“The art-deco Sunnyside sign at 46th Street is a neighborhood icon,” Van Bramer said. “My office is working diligently with Sunnyside Shines to make sure the sign greets locals and visitors to our neighborhood for years to come.”
This is not the first time the lights have been down.
The lights stopped working for eight months in 2012, before they were repaired by the city, but have since “lost functionality after these repairs.”
When the lights were repaired in 2012, 46th Street under the lights had to be shut down at times, causing the repairs to take longer than anticipated. Thieme said that since there is no definite plan in place for fixing the lights, she is unsure if road closures will be involved again.
