Glowing Lanterns Will Float Through Morningside Park Next Month!

Hundreds of handmade lanterns will glow their way through Morningside Park next month, and the fifteenth edition of the procession will leave behind something that outlasts a single night.

Advertisement

The procession steps off Saturday, September 19 at 8 p.m. at 116th Street and Morningside Avenue. This year’s theme is “A Common Thread,” an exploration of the patterns and motifs that surround us in textiles, home decoration, architecture and engineered spaces. Participants will build luminous patterned panels into lanterns inspired by the geometry of American quilts, and a winding red line will run through the designs to link them along the route.

The anniversary also brings the first exhibition to gather photographs from every year of the procession. “Carried by Light: Celebrating 15 Years of Morningside Lights,” curated by Lauren Bailey Cognetti, opens in the Miller Theatre lobby on September 12 and stays up through May 2027. It’ll be open to the public September 12 through 19 during the lantern-building workshops, and for two hours before Miller Theatre events for the rest of the 2026-27 season.

Anyone who wants to help build the lanterns can do it for free. Daily workshops run September 12 through 18 on the Miller Theatre stage at 116th and Broadway, led by Alex Kahn and Sophia Michahelles of Processional Arts Workshop, the team behind the giant puppets at the Village Halloween Parade. No experience is necessary, and while the work is geared toward adults and teens, kids 10 and up are welcome alongside a participating adult. Registration opens Wednesday, September 2 at morningside-lights.com.

Here’s the workshop schedule:

• Saturday, September 12: 12 p.m. to 3 p.m., 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.
• Sunday, September 13: 12 p.m. to 3 p.m., 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.
• Monday, September 14: 2 p.m. to 5 p.m., 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.
• Tuesday, September 15: 2 p.m. to 5 p.m., 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., 8 p.m. to 10 p.m.
• Wednesday, September 16: 2 p.m. to 5 p.m., 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.
• Thursday, September 17: 2 p.m. to 5 p.m., 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., 8 p.m. to 10 p.m.
• Friday, September 18: 2 p.m. to 5 p.m., 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Advertisement

On procession night, the roughly one-mile route reaches the Columbia campus around 8:45 p.m., rain or shine. Marchers can join anywhere along the way, and anyone hoping to carry a lantern should get to 120th Street and Morningside Avenue by 7 p.m., when lanterns are handed out first come, first served. One wrinkle worth planning around: until the procession arrives, campus entry is limited to CUID holders, and participants enter with the procession through the gate at Amsterdam Avenue and 116th Street. Anyone coming from the Broadway side will need to walk around campus, and organizers suggest 1 train riders exit at 110th Street and head east to meet the route.

Melissa Smey, executive director of the Arts Initiative and Miller Theatre, said the event started fifteen years ago with “a small team and a simple idea,” that making art together could bring a community closer. She said more than 25,000 people have helped build lanterns since.

Morningside Lights was created in 2012 by Brenna St. George Jones, Kahn, Michahelles and Smey, with the Friends of Morningside Park as a partner from the start. Past editions have taken on everything from Langston Hughes to Romare Bearden to the Pulitzer Prize centennial, and last year’s lanterns inspired by 1965 marked the fourteenth.

Have a news tip? Send it to us here!