A second lighting this year: bay district readies its first "Autumn Window Day"

By the evening of the 1st, stepladders stood along the Shiomibashi street. Dust wiped from the inside of the glass, candle holders set out, batteries changed. Half a day of preparation for an event that consists of putting out a light.

The origins, as usual, are disputed. "It's a second chance for the shops that missed the summer lighting," laughs the association head, 58. Older voices insist that lights belong facing the shore in the week of Drift Remembrance Day. The street has declined to settle it. "If you fix the origin, then any way of doing it that doesn't match the origin becomes wrong," he said. The wording of the notice was rewritten again and again for that reason; the sheet finally delivered to every household reads only, "On the night of Sept. 2, we will put lights in our windows." Not one line explains why.

Window Day on July 2 has spread across the bay area over recent years. Until last year the autumn version was simply something a few shops did on their own. With the association issuing a formal call this year, two neighboring shopping associations have joined.

The hardware store owner, 71, was one of those doing it before anyone asked. On this day, unbidden, he was measuring the position of the street lamp outside his shop. "A custom belongs to whoever starts it without permission. The day the city writes a set of guidelines, it's finished." The association head does not argue. The city's cultural promotion division says it is "watching a voluntary local initiative," offering neither sponsorship nor subsidy. "Nobody has even asked us to," an official said.

Batteries or candles, either is acceptable, though the association discourages elaborate electric displays. "A light that might go out stops people better than a light that can't," the association head explains. A coffee shop owner, 44, has three candles ready. "If the wind takes one, I light it again. That's part of what our window is."

Past the end of the shopping street, beyond the reach of the notice, lights have begun appearing in house windows too. Asked why, people give different answers. A woman, 77, moves the flame from her family altar to the sill; a young couple say only that they felt like it. A second-generation man, 52, whose father was a first-generation Drifter, said: "My old man kept a small light on the sill all year round, July or September, made no difference. As a kid all I thought about was the electricity bill. Now I never asked him what it was for."

Crowds are expected across the bay after sunset on the 2nd, and the bay monorail is considering extra services; with slow-running restrictions still in place from the sustained permeation index, the operator says it will decide that afternoon. The shopping street will partially close the road to vehicles for two hours from 6 p.m. Lighting is set for 7, but there will be no signal. "We have no intention of synchronizing our watches," the association head said. "Around seven, each window, each person. If everyone did it at once, it would turn into an event."