The ribbon cutting and bridge-lighting ceremony in downtown Waterloo, IA, marked a new beginning for the city’s Fourth Street bridge. The Waterloo River Lights Experience brings a series of 30-minute light shows to the bridge and river below.
The city says that the display serves as an economic development engine, a source of community advancement and pride, and a tool for visitor attraction. The bridge is also the site of an upcoming fundraising event sponsored by Waterloo Main Street, which will bring donors together for a unique dining experience under the lights.
This is not the first time that the city has hosted a community meal in an unlikely place. In 1903 with the completion of a large underground conduit designed to provide better drainage to the downtown area, the city hosted 450 guests at an elaborate banquet in the conduit. The Waterloo Daily Courier noted that the Dry Run Sewer Banquet received worldwide coverage. City booster Frank Pierce wrote in the paper, “no other city will be able to give us a banquet in a sewer.”
More on creating a downtown destination appears in the October issue of Downtown Idea Exchange newsletter.
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