Many years ago I was privileged to work on relighting The Church of the Covenant on Newbury Street in Boston. It boasts some of Louis Comfort Tiffany’s finest windows, as well as a gorgeous and monumental chandelier, which — if I recall correctly – was his first light fixture. It hangs at the crux of the transept, beautifully transposed upon the archwork of the chancel and altar and is spectacular in its Art Deco details (the ancient, scanned-slide thumbnail above does not do it justice). While we added theatrical lighting for weddings, a good deal of architectural detail lighting to highlight features previously invisible, and designed lanterns for the side archways to greatly boost the light levels, the vast and lofty space remained, shall we say, “moody” …A year or more ago I was asked to come by and offer suggestions for further augmenting the light levels, as their aging congregation was finding the dim interior increasingly unworkable. From numerous suggestions made, we chose to mock up a scheme involving tiny, directional low-voltage spots mounted high on the sidewalls, partially camouflaged by column capitals and a ledge under the clerestory windows, and aimed in to the center of the space, where light was needed most.The church has a long extension ladder to get to the uplights we’d added years ago, which are on other column capitals perhaps 30’ in the air. These new positions would be almost 10’ higher, that ladder’s theoretical limit. Knowing I wouldn’t be able to get to the spot directly, I mounted the test light to a pole which I could hold aloft from the top of the ladder, and we began.The pews are securely bolted to the floor, the end of one making a better footing than any well-meaning human (albeit a bit closer to the wall than ideal). It took three of us to get the massive beast vertical, and with the base in place we began extending the upper section by pulling on the integral rope and pulley, the latches of the extension rattling off the rungs of the base section as it went up. A rung or two at a time. Slowly, carefully — heavy thing, wobbling but more or less in control. Almost there … Then came a really big noise. The fire alarm.