Washington Monument to be Lit Every Night During Closure for Repairs

The Washington Monument is closed for earthquake damage repairs for the next year, and during that time, 488 lamps will provide light for the tower every night on the National Mall, according to the Associated Press.

Starting on Monday, the National Park Service will light the monument every night at dusk, with a ceremony accompanying the first lighting. Jonathan Jarvis, the director of the National Park Service, and David Rubenstein, a philanthropist who has donated $7.5 million to fund half the cost of the repairs, will attend the ceremony.

"He's taking his leadership role as a co-chair of the campaign for the National Mall very seriously," Caroline Cunningham, the president of the fundraising group, said of Rubenstein's role as co-chairman of the Trust for the National Mall. "We're really grateful for not only his passion about the restoration of the Washington Monument but his passion for the campaign to restore the National Mall."

The monument has been wrapped in a blue, semi-transparent fabric that covers the scaffolding as it undergoes the repairs that became necessary after the 2011 earthquake damage.

The architect that designed a scrim to decorate the monument between 1998 and 2000, when it was last restored, is again being used, this time to provide a design to exaggerate the scale of the monument's stone pattern and the mortar being repaired.

"We know that our visitors are disappointed that they can't actually go up in the monument," Bob Vogel, the National Mall Superintendent, told the Associated Press. "So, we hope that this will make up for it just a little."

The lighting is a milestone in the restoration process to reopen the monument. It will be lit gradually, from bottom to top, a process that will take several minutes. After the first lighting on Monday, sensors will light the monument automatically every night at dusk.

The restoration process will repair the mortar and stones that came loose and cracked off during the 2011 earthquake, which reached a 5.8-magnitude on August 23.

The monument is expected to reopen after the completion of the repairs in Spring 2014, according to an estimation by the park service.