Indicators

Indicators

There are maybe twelve full buildings visible from the glimpse of the skyline you get from my apartment. If you crane your neck you can even see the top of the Prudential, flashing whatever color combination reflects the city’s current events.

Red White and Blue for the 4th and Patriots day, White and Green for the Celtics, and many three colored mixes representing the heraldic tinctures of whatever country relates to the commemorative day.

Below it, much further down is another colored roof, much more reserved in its spectacle. Some three hundred feet lower, a needle sits with either blue or red lights set within its housing.

Connecting the dots, I began wondering if this older, quieter building I had looked at thousands of times in the two years I have lived here was the weather indicator I had heard of in passing.

I began looking for the full story online until finding the building’s name and its associated Wikipedia page.¹

The full story went like this:

First lit in 1950, the weather beacon atop the Berkeley building indicated the weather forecast provided by a meteorological agency located on one of the floors. Blue meant clear skies ahead, flashing for clouds. Red meant rain was to be expected, flashing when that precipitation became snow.²

In the decades following its installation, the information provided by the beacon would be eclipsed, first by radio, then morning news, and eventually smartphones.

For most who live in the city today, it’s just a light among all of the others now present.

Our world is full of data, sometimes cleaned and presented obviously, other times hidden in the noise of a city. When we allow ourselves to sit with our curiosity, it is valuable both as an exercise and for the questions it brings up.