Who is responsible for the snowflake lights attached to the lampposts on Varick Street and Hudson Street north of Canal Street? —K.

The short answer is the Hudson Square Connection, the area’s business improvement district; there’s even a page on its website about the snowflakes. But since that doesn’t make for much of a post, I asked the HSC for some background about the snowflakes. Here’s the response:

Hudson Square Connection has experimented with non-traditional decorations since they were established, such as the “holiday cactus” last year. This is the first year they are doing the snowflakes. They chose lights this year as they wanted to literally brighten the streets this season.

The snowflakes were designed in house by HSC. The design is particularly interesting—there are three large snowflakes and two small ones. Each installation follows the same pattern: using one large and two small, and after that each one is unique in the following way:

••• Which snowflake is on top or bottom

••• How the large snowflake is angled (one will be at a 90 degree, the next tilted at 35, the next tilted further etc., essentially to create a line of snowflakes that when viewed are slightly different and more visually appealing than the traditionals that look exactly alike.

The shooting-star lights you see below Chambers are by the Downtown Alliance, the business improvement district for Lowest Manhattan.

Got a question? Email it to tribecacitizen@gmail.com.

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