LDI’s 50th Anniversary Lights Up Philadelphia’s Skyline

As part of the communication programs heralding its 50th Anniversary, the University of Pennsylvania’s Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics (LDI) is literally lighting up the sky with a commemorative message on the famed PECO Crown Lights. The 40-foot high message ribbon surrounding the top of the electric utility’s 27-story headquarters building is intermittently scrolling the message: “PennLDI: 50 Years of Health Policy Leadership.” For 41 years, the Crown Lights ribbon has been one of the Philadelphia skyline’s most visible beacons. It offers a constant mix of daily time and temperature reports along with messages commemorating the achievements of local community and civil organizations and saluting moments of local and national historical importance. In its haiku-like brevity, the Crown Lights’ message format was a portent of the Twitter era in a way that perhaps makes the ribbon more relevant than ever today as a channel of broad public communications. Click image for larger.

The PECO ribbon is just one of a variety of ways LDI has graphically declared the anniversary of its nationally famous health services and policy research history. At right are samples of some of its other visuals (Photos by Hoag Levins)