Philadelphia lights up: when the city of brotherly love lit its sculptures, a whole new world opened for its residents.

Dark pathways in urban parks are never a welcome sight for residents and visitors in a city. Such was the case in Philadelphia's Fairmount Park, which underwent a large-scale illumination project in September 2003 of its main path, Kelly Drive, and its 13 sculpture inhabitants from American history and folklore.

"We had always wanted to light the sculptures," says Laura Griffith, assistant director of the Fairmount Park Art Association. The association, which was the leader on the project, is also considered the oldest private, non-profit public art and urban planning association in the country, having been founded in 1872. Beginning in 1999, the association collaborated with Philadelphia's Streets Department and the Fairmount Park Commission. The association also consulted with the private Lighting Design Collaborative, which designed the lighting, scheme under the association's direction and funding.

More than $280,000 was spent on the low-maintenance, vandal-resistant fixtures alone, Griffith says. To cut costs, the association used street lighting poles for its 37 pole-mounted fixtures, and added 19 enclosed ground fixtures and 12 additional poles. Pole's and fixtures were painted the same bronze color as the new street light poles for uniformity purposes.

Griffith says the association's goal was to create an ambient, welcoming atmosphere around Kelly Drive, and so it chose metal-halide as the primary bulb choice.

Theming was consistent with the use of Victorian inspired fixtures throughout. Because of the variety of the sculptures, an average of two to three different types of lighting mounts, both ground- and pole-mounted, were used to properly illuminated them.

For instance, the Augustus Saint-Gaudens' "James Garfield Monument," installed in 1895, needed two different mountings, two poles and one ground-mounted fixture, in order to highlight the granite base with its bronze allegorical female figure and the upper bronze bust of Garfield. "So many people have said to us now 'that we can see that piece--it's so dynamic,'" says Griffith. "It was a dark hole and now it's an illuminated piece."

Jacques Lipchitz' "The spirit of Enterprise," a massive sculpture that stands more than 10 feet high and 14 feet wide, needed three lights, one ground-mounted fixtures and two pole-mounted fixtures to provide adequate lighting. "It's just illuminated that space that had never been seen before," Griffith says.

Since completing the project last fall, the association has already seen a massive improvement--both in the number of people visiting the park at night and the added safety of well-lit pathways.

Because of the success of the illumination project, the Fairmount Park Association has partnered with the Center City District to light building facades and sculptures along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, which also borders portions of Fairmount Park. The Project is scheduled for completion this summer.