Legacy of lights still loved by local residents

This holiday season, thousands of families will visit North School Park in downtown Arlington Heights to take in its larger-than-life, toy-land display, which features more than 70,000 twinkling lights.

Few, however, know the story of how they were created.

Arlington Heights Park District officials, though, are remembering the former employee who designed and built most of the attractions. He passed away in October.

"Each of the tiny lights serves as a glowing tribute to the artist who gave them life," Nancy Chamberlain of Wheeling, former communications director for the park district, says of her friend, Louis Nagy.

Nagy was a native of Hungary and he began working as a general tradesman for the park district 20 years ago. He often was called on to weld or fabricate pieces to fix equipment throughout the park system, says Brian Huckstadt, parks and planning director.

"He could do anything," Huckstadt says. "He could repair machine steel or fabricate almost any part needed to keep equipment and facilities in operation."

Once village and park officials bought North School Park in 1988, they began to design it as a focal point for the downtown business district. The idea of enhancing it for the holidays began to take shape.

Nagy was tapped to design the first sculptures, which began appearing in 1991. One of his first creations, a snowman atop a platform trimmed in candy canes, still greets visitors today.

Park officials recall that Nagy worked from sketches on paper or on the back of a sheet of plywood before using his skill as an ironworker and welder to bend quarter-inch steel rods into sculptures.

Nagy didn't do it alone. The rest of the parks department team, Huckstadt says, painted, decorated, lighted and assembled the creations, bringing them to life.

Each year, Nagy and other staffers tried to add something to the display, including in 1994, the lighted arches that reflect Nagy's European heritage; in 1997, a rocking horse in 1997; and in 1999, a replica World War I biplane. Later creations ranged from spinning dreidels, to a 20-foot-long 14th century Spanish ship, to a spinning panda on top of a holiday present.

Nagy carved the wooden horses for a carousel and he recreated a vintage truck representative of those used by the public works staff. For a toy train, he painted a nostalgic Hungarian mountain scene, reminiscent of his homeland.

Park officials stopped trying to add to the display several years ago. "We simply didn't have the room" to store more, Huckstadt says.

Now, they rotate pieces each year. Even without new additions, more than a dozen illuminated sculptures spread around the park's 1.65 acres remain as big a draw as ever.

"Every night when I leave, there are always people there walking through the park, especially parents with small children stopping at every display," Huckstadt says. "What a legacy he has left us."

<p class="factboxheadblack">If you go </p> <p class="News"><b>What:</b> Holiday display, originally created by former Arlington Heights Park District employee Louis Nagy.</p> <p class="News"><b>When:</b> Open every day and evening through the first week of January.</p> <p class="News"><b>Where:</b> North School Park, 401 N. Arlington Heights Road, Arlington Heights.</p> <p class="News"><b>Cost:</b> Free.</p>