For a century, Nela Park, the former headquarters of General Electric Lighting, was a Christmastime beacon for Cleveland families looking for a spectacle of holiday lights. Generations of Clevelanders enjoyed the evolving display, which hit a high mark last year when Nela celebrated 100 years of bright Christmas cheer with multi-colored waterfalls of lights spanning the campus on the edge of East Cleveland.
But this year it’s more humbug than Clark Griswold as Cleveland’s most famous light shows is looking a lot more dim than usual.
On Monday, what used to be estate-wide display was instead just a single lit-up tree and snowflake entrance off the corner of Noble and Terrace roads.
Which has many Clevelanders let down.
“This is a bummer,” one said on Reddit. “Oh noooo,” another said.
GE Lighting said in a statement to Scene that the annual Nela Park decorations have been downscaled to instead “highlight the 63rd year it has proudly designed and illuminated the official National Christmas Tree that sits near the White House.”
And it appears the joy and festive spirit are officially dead going forward. The company is donating much of its lighting displays to area nonprofits and groups so “they can continue to be experienced and enjoyed for generations to come.”
Recipients include Downtown Cleveland Inc. (Winterland at Public Square, Voinovich Park and Playhouse Square), Western Reserve Historical Society, Boys & Girls Clubs of Northeast Ohio, City of Cleveland Department of Parks & Recreation, City of Euclid, Village of Highland Hills, Cleveland Metroparks Zoo – Lights for Lions program, Chagrin Valley Jaycees, Ohio City, Lock 3 Park Akron and Santa’s Hide-A-Way Hollow.
It’s a hell of an end to a tradition.
What was the byproduct of a merger involving Thomas Edison’s company, the National Electric Lamp Association was constructed in the 1910s to handle a national boom in electric lighting. Nela spanned 11 buildings on 71 acres of land on the border of East Cleveland and Cleveland Heights.
The park’s first light display debuted in 1924, a signal to the world that Cleveland was serious about its industry, and festivity. (It got the nickname “The University of Light.”)
And by the 1940s, Nela became a touristic counterpart to Public Square’s own holiday show.
“It was lit beautifully. Tons and tons of lights. Everybody followed a serpentine direction,” Clevelander Barbara Wherley recalled in 2012. “It was bumper to bumper cars all the time in December. It was just beautiful. Just beautiful.”
The 21st century bore bad news for Nela Park. GE began downsizing its lighting business in the 2010s; GE Lighting was sold to Savant Systems in 2020; and the Nela property was later sold to Phoenix Investors, though GE Lighting signed a long-term lease to operate on the property.
Phoenix had recently announced plans to consolidate most of Nela’s production into one building, Cleveland.com reported in 2022, and seek other tenants to fill the rest of the estate.
