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April 5th, 2010
An LED flashblack: The 2009 NCAA men’s basketball championship celebration on Franklin Street
This time last year, all eyes were on Chapel Hill, NC, after the Tar Heels secured the Men’s NCAA Basketball Championship. Fans filled Franklin Street, celebrating the win in true Tar Heel style, by taking the fun to the streets.
Many of us watched the revelry from the comfort of our couches. On TV, we saw thousands of students and fans dotting the main drag through Chapel Hill, cheering and jumping over fires. At Cree, we watched intently for other reasons.
About a week before the championship game, ten high-pressure sodium (HPS) streetlights on Franklin Street were replaced with LED streetlights. The orange glow cast by the HPS streetlights was cast aside and the white light produced by the new LED streetlights helped make colors pop.
The LED streetlights were installed in the 100 block of Franklin Street where students and residents gather to celebrate events like Halloween and big Tar Heel wins.
Flickr user benuski posted this picture of Franklin Street during the 2009 NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship celebration. Note the orange glow from the HPS streetlight.
Since the LED streetlights help make colors pop, it was easy to see which section of Franklin Street featured the energy-saving LED lights and which section was still stuck with the dimmer HPS streetlights. In the LED-lit section, you could actually see the Carolina blue T-shirts Tar Heel fans were rocking. In the HPS-lit section, it just looked like a dingy, orangey mob with some semblance of blue mixed in.
Take a look for yourself in this time-lapse video The Daily Tar Heel produced of the Franklin Street celebration last year. You’ll see the LED-lit side of the street on the left and the dingy HPS-lit side on the right:
Timelapse: Franklin Street after the victory from The Daily Tar Heel on Vimeo.
See, looks like the LED Lighting Revolution has game.
2 Responses to “An LED flashblack: The 2009 NCAA men’s basketball championship celebration on Franklin Street”
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Not a good advertisement for LED lighting IMHO. The LED side looks both dimmer and far too blue in this film.
Hi Bill,
I can see why it appears that way. Part of the reason why the LED side looks so blue is because almost every person standing on the street is wearing a UNC blue shirt. Since LED lights render colors better than HPS lights, you can actually see what color clothes the students are wearing on the LED-lit side v. the HPS-lit side, where everyone looks orange. Here’s a link to our post on the Franklin Street with a before and after photo, it does a much better job of showing the difference:
http://www.creeledrevolution.com/revolutionaries/town-chapel-hill
Thanks for writing!