A tree on Ninth Street outside Shakespeare’s Pizza is getting quite a bit of attention. The remarkable tree is visible along the sidewalks from University Avenue all the way north to East Walnut Street, leading ogling spectators right to Shakespeare’s front door.
“It’s stunning,” Shakespeare’s customer Gigi Goodall says. “It’s not like a normal Christmas tree.”
Indeed, Shakespeare’s colorful beacon is illuminated by almost 20,000 Christmas lights of all colors. At many points during the night hours, passersby can be seen fawning over the lights and snapping pictures of themselves under the tree.
“Basically, we just wanted to do something that’s cool,” Shakespeare’s manager Toby Epstein says. “We thought it would help downtown look a little festive.”
The tree bears a startling resemblance to Columbia’s Magic Tree, located in the Village of Cherry Hill at the corner of Scott Boulevard and Chapel Hill Road. It’s no fraud, though — Shakespeare’s tree was decorated by the Magic Tree’s own creator Randy Fletcher.
“I always wanted to do a tree downtown, so I’m happy about doing that,” Fletcher says. “I think (it) brings a lot of happiness to people, and it seems like the job is worth it.”
Shakespeare’s called up Fletcher last Thanksgiving to hire him for decoration but was told it would need to put in some extra power and outlet capacity first. With a vamped-up power supply mounted on the building’s roof, the pizza business was ready this year. Fletcher spent four days prior to Thanksgiving tightly stringing lights around every branch of the tree.
The result is a light display vastly similar to the Magic Tree. But Fletcher is quick to dispel any namesake the two trees might share.
“I’m of the mind that there’s only one Magic Tree, and that’s the official one that has the flier that I put out,” he said. “But I understand how people just generally refer to them generically as ‘magic trees.’”
The downtown tree isn’t the first one besides the Magic Tree that Fletcher has decorated, but it’s currently the only one this year of its kind — aside from the Magic Tree, of course. The lights are all his, though Shakespeare’s paid him to set them up and foots the dreaded electricity bill.
Fletcher estimates that, between the 50/50 split of LED and incandescent lights, the tree will probably cost Shakespeare’s almost $100 a month.
“We’re eagerly awaiting our first electric bill,” Epstein said.
The lights go up each night at about 5 p.m., when the night shift begins, and they continue to shine until 2 a.m. at closing time.
The tree’s luminescence makes it the focal point of Ninth Street this winter. Now that the trees lining the sidewalks have long shed their leaves, Fletcher’s lights give a new color to the tree’s branches.
“It really stood out to me, considering the rest of the street,” freshman Andrew Cockerham said. “There’s not a whole lot going on (on the street).”
“I think it would be cool if all of Ninth Street had these lights up,” Epstein said. “It would look pretty cool.”
Fletcher disagrees.
“I’d hate to see it get to a point where it’s common so that there’s a lack of appreciation for it,” he said. “People would just be using a lot of electricity that might be better saved for down the road instead of just burning lots of coal.”
Of course, after working four days to decorate Shakespeare’s limbs, perhaps the concept of an entire avenue of lights isn’t as enticing to Fletcher as it is to passersby.
