PLANNING STRATEGY: To help the 125th Street BID raise $60,000 to add holiday lights across the entire length of 125th Street in Harlem, as well as to position the BID’s first holiday lighting of 125th Street from the East River to the Hudson River as a historical event, to be built over time into an international tourist attraction. Dash was tasked to organize the event on December 7, 2010, and to obtain local and national press for the lighting ceremony.
In addition to generating awareness of the lighting of one of the world’s most famous thoroughfares, Dash secured celebrity chef Marcus Samuelsson, founder of restaurants Aquavit and The Red Rooster, to “flip the switch,” and also organized a program for the evening’s festivities. Dash also helped secure a Christmas Tree for the West Harlem Piers, working in conjunction with the Riverside Park Fund to start an annual tree lighting tradition on the Hudson River.
GOALS: To raise funds for the lighting of the street, and to use the event as a catalyst to kick off efforts at continued branding of 125th Street as an international tourist attraction, with a holiday lighting event that can grow to rival the Rockefeller Center Tree Lighting ceremony each December.
RESULTS: Editorial coverage achieved on behalf of the client in more than 175 national media outlets, such as Bloomberg, USA Today, The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times, with local coverage on WABC, in the New York Post, The Daily News, DNA Info. The extensive media coverage led to the raising of funds to light the 125th Street corridor for the holiday season, during one of the country’s most depressed economic periods.
