“Meet me at the pink lamppost.”
Those are words that few people ever expect to say, but that’s now a reality in downtown Waldo. A giant pink lamppost stands in the heart of the neighborhood at 75th Street and Wornall Road.
The sculpture, called Light in Your Eyes is, by its most simple definition, an oversized, vintage-inspired streetlamp painted a vibrant shade of pink. At night, it emits a rosy glow.
“Pink is a very happy color,” says James Martin, the City of Kansas City’s public art administrator. “The fact that it’s kind of a super-sized lamppost—there’s a certain amount of absurdity to it, which is refreshing.”
The sculpture was commissioned as part of the larger streetscape improvements completed along Wornall. Funding came from the same general obligation bond program that financed Waldo’s street improvements, with a portion dedicated to public art. Following a national call for artists, a selection panel chose Miami-based R&R Studios for the project.
Circular seating built into the lamppost’s base creates a gathering spot, and the artists envisioned the sculpture as a place where strangers might strike up conversations simply because they happened to share a seat beneath a giant pink light. It’s also surrounded by plenty of Waldo’s beloved restaurants, bars and local businesses, so the intersection already naturally serves as a hub.
For Martin, Light in Your Eyes is memorable because it bridges past and present. The antique-inspired design acknowledges Waldo’s history as one of KC’s longest-standing neighborhoods, and its exaggerated scale and hot pink hue push it into contemporary territory.
“It’s really a combination of old and new,” Martin says. “We’ve got this antique-looking lamppost that can speak to the fact that Waldo is an older neighborhood, and yet it’s such a new and fresh take on what a lamppost can be.”
Martin says community reaction has largely been positive, though he acknowledges that contemporary public art can take time to grow on people. He recalls one city engineer who was initially skeptical of the proposal, but changed their mind once the installation was complete.
But Martin says that’s part of the value of public art. Beyond creating landmarks, it helps build the character of a neighborhood. “I feel like it’s going to be an instant landmark for Waldo,” he says.
