Lighting fixture aims to transform 6½ Avenue

Clipper Equities and Chetrit Group want to make the corridor a destination

A rendering of 6½ Avenue from 52nd at 135 W. 52nd Street (Credit: Williams New York)
A rendering of 6½ Avenue from 52nd at 135 W. 52nd Street (Credit: Williams New York)

In the words of Kanye West, turn up the lights in here, baby.

So far, it’s mostly a shortcut through Midtown, but if it’s up to Chetrit Group and Clipper Equity, 6½ Avenue — a pedestrian-only corridor between West 51st and 57th streets — could be much more, the Wall Street Journal reported. And to fulfill the walkway’s potential the developers have hired French lighting designer Thierry Dreyfus to install permanent lights in the somewhat hidden, six-block stretch.

Clipper and Equity are converting a hotel into condominiums at 135 West 52nd Street and are hoping to make 6½ Avenue a destination, rather than a passageway.

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“When I first saw the corridor, I noticed that it was a space where people were leaving,” Dreyfus told the newspaper. “The big question I asked myself was how I could use light to lure people to stay there and not move.”

The result is the suspension of dozens of copper tubes with light bulbs hanging from them, according to the newspaper, that will be able to move with the wind and create a — what the lighting guru hopes to be — a soothing sound. [WSJ] — Claire Moses