The 37th Street lights are one of the best remaining examples of Austiny Austin, in my opinion. I first saw the lights several years ago, around the time this description was written by one of the residents.

Photographs don’t adequately convey the experience of 37th street. The closest simulation I’ve found is the virtual tour of Central Texas holiday lights.

The pictures that follow were taken in Jamie Lipman’s back- and side yards. Jamie is, by all accounts I’ve read, the man responsible for starting the tradition.

Visitors should heed the advice given by Adam Rice: walk, especiallysuperimportant if you’re attempting to make the trip on a weekend. Drive down 38th (the purple line on the map below—click ‘continue reading’ for the map) and find a side street to park on. Avoid turning down Cedar on a busy night, as this is the street the cars turn down after they’ve driven through the street. Speedway, W 33 or W 32, and Grooms are the streets I’d try first. We did get lucky this year, finding a plum space on Cedar, but it was part luck and part stupidity—I’d intended to go all the way to Speedway and just turned too soon.

If you want to see the lights but can’t make the trek on foot (I can think of several cases in which this might apply), you will want to line up to drive through the street by driving north on Guadalupe and preparing to turn right on W 37th (the blue line on the map below).