{"id":653,"date":"2026-03-21T02:08:55","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T02:08:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xn--mnchen-3ya.xyz\/index.php\/2026\/03\/21\/matt-bay-lights-are-back\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T02:08:55","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T02:08:55","slug":"matt-bay-lights-are-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xn--mnchen-3ya.xyz\/index.php\/2026\/03\/21\/matt-bay-lights-are-back\/","title":{"rendered":"Matt: Bay Lights are Back!"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-151574\" height=\"340\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ma.tt\/files\/2026\/03\/TBL_Longview-1024x576.jpg?resize=604%2C340&amp;quality=89&amp;ssl=1\" width=\"604\" \/><\/figure>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Tonight, a project very near and dear to my heart, the <a href=\"https:\/\/illuminate.org\/projects\/thebaylights\/\">Bay Lights in San Francisco<\/a>, are officially re-lighting after a three-year hiatus. It\u2019s been an incredible journey getting here. I literally mortgaged my apartment in 2013 to help fund them the first time around, and it\u2019s such an honor to see them relit now with better technology and new programming from the amazing artist <a href=\"https:\/\/villareal.net\/\">Leo Villereal<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Whether you\u2019re looking down at the lights from a penthouse or top office, or up at them from the water along the Embarcadero, this is truly an art project that illuminates the soul of everyone in San Francisco, radically accessible and open.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I\u2019ve heard they\u2019re still raising around 500k to close out the project. You <a href=\"https:\/\/sif.illuminate.org\/\">can dedicate a light here for someone special<\/a>. I\u2019m going to do one to <a href=\"https:\/\/ma.tt\/2016\/04\/in-memoriam-chuck-mullenweg\/\">honor my father, who passed in 2016<\/a>. If you\u2019d like to be part of San Francisco\u2019s boom loop and have a pleasant twinkle of enlightenment every time you see the bridge, I encourage you to donate as well!<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you live somewhere with a view of the bridge, think of it as buying a piece of art you\u2019ll enjoy every night, and also having that warm feeling of being part of making San Francisco more beautiful for everyone.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I\u2019m on the board of Illuminate, which only has two full-time employees, and I\u2019ve never seen another non-profit generate so much public joy and benefit with so few people. They\u2019re also behind <a href=\"https:\/\/illuminate.org\/projects\/golden-mile-project\/\">the Golden Mile<\/a> and the <a href=\"https:\/\/illuminate.org\/venues\/golden-gate-bandshell\/\">live music at the Golden Gate Bandshell<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Please consider <a href=\"https:\/\/sif.illuminate.org\/\">making a one-time donation of a light, which is anywhere from $100 to $2,500<\/a>, or <a href=\"https:\/\/illuminate.org\/donate\/#donate\">become a recurring member of the Illuminate Tribe<\/a>, or if you are really part of making San Francisco better consider <a href=\"https:\/\/illuminate.org\/donate\/#illuminary\">being an Illuminary at 50k\/yr<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Also, thank you to all the <a href=\"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/\">WordPress<\/a> community members who have done so much to support this project and help them fundraise and improve their website. It\u2019s such a great example of the WordPress open source spirit and ethos.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">San Francisco is so back! Let\u2019s go!<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tonight, a project very near and dear to my heart, the Bay Lights in San Francisco, are officially re-lighting after a three-year hiatus. It\u2019s been an incredible journey getting here. I literally mortgaged my apartment in 2013 to help fund them the first time around, and it\u2019s such an honor to see them relit now [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":654,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xn--mnchen-3ya.xyz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xn--mnchen-3ya.xyz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xn--mnchen-3ya.xyz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xn--mnchen-3ya.xyz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xn--mnchen-3ya.xyz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xn--mnchen-3ya.xyz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xn--mnchen-3ya.xyz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xn--mnchen-3ya.xyz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xn--mnchen-3ya.xyz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xn--mnchen-3ya.xyz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}