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'Global Rainbow' is an art installation by the American artist, Yvette Mattern Link

It consists of 7 parallel laser lights in the traditional colours of a rainbow NZ3475 : Whitley Bay "Global Rainbow". Over five nights from 29 February to 4th March 2012, the display was beamed from St Mary's Headland NZ3575 : Curry's Point south over Whitley Bay, passing just above the dome of Spanish City Link

The powerful laser lights project some 5 miles but can be seen as far away as Sunderland.

The installation is touring the UK and Northern Ireland Link for the London 2012 Cultural Olympics.

Global Rainbow was initially created for projection from the top of a Wall Street skyscraper over Ground Zero in New York City on 19 January 2009 (Martin Luther King Day). Subsequently, it has been shown in Berlin, Toulouse, Utrecht and Nantes. Whitley Bay in 2012 was its UK première.

BBC News: Link

The white dome of the former Empress Ballroom, is as much a symbol of Whitley Bay as the lighthouse on St. Mary's Island NZ3575 : Causeway to St Mary's Island. The Grade II Listed building, whose towers are topped with two female figures clad in animal pelts, one carrying a cymbal and the other a tambourine, formed the centrepiece of the Spanish City fairground. Founded in 1908, the fairground was the entertainment complex around which the seaside resort revolved. In 1980 it gained international fame with the release of the Dire Straits song 'Tunnel of Love', which conjured up the nostalgic thrills and spills of a trip to the fairground with lines like, "Girl you look so pretty to me/like you always did/Like the Spanish City to me/when we were kids". The fairground is now closed and this area of the town is on the verge of being redeveloped.
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