Mecom Fountain update: no money, no lights

We've been wondering why the Mecom Fountain hasn't been lighted at night lately, and this weekend, the Chronicle had the answer: It's because someone stole the fountain's lighting system, though no one's quite sure when or how they did it. Or, for that matter, when the lights might come on again.

The theft was actually pretty amazing: Someone cut through the cables to the lighting system and carted off the fountain's 264 light bulbs and the bronze canisters that enclosed them. Was it an elaborate prank? An act of defiance by someone who really hates lighted fountains? Or maybe a case of metal theft? "Hard to say," said Mark Ross, the deputy director of facilities for the Parks and Recreation Department, which maintains the fountain. "Precious metal theft is in vogue for sure." What's clear is that people want the lights back: "It's our Trevi Fountain, our Golden Gate Bridge," City Councilman Peter Brown, an architect who lives near the fountain, said. "It's the urban icon that helps define this city." Not only that, but the lights make things safer around the traffic circle at Main and Montrose, where the fountain is located: "People walk at all sorts of hours around here," Richard Hirshberg, a resident of the Warwick Towers, said. "Even driving, it's safer with the fountain lights on."

The problem, of course, is money: The Parks Department estimates that it'll take about $100,000 to get the lights working again, and that doesn't include labor and the cost of draining and refilling the fountain. "Currently we do not have funding identified to order the replacement. We plan to order it as soon as we get fiscal money for 2008, which will come in July," Parks Department spokeswoman Estella Espinosa told the Chronicle. If the money comes — either through city budgeting or donations — management of the Hotel Zaza said their security team will keep an eye on the fountain, and the Parks Department is considering keeping the lights on all night instead of turning them off at 2 or 3 a.m., which would make it harder for someone to climb into the fountain in the middle of the night and make off with 264 light housings. And speaking of that — how did they do it? Ross speculated that the theft was done at night, but he said it could have been during the day when passersby would assume the thieves were simply working on the fountain. Either way, it seems like an incredibly complicated and ballsy thing to do: "It's like stealing a great big diamond in the middle of a museum in front of everybody," Ross said.

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Photo: flickr user laanba