After 39 years of Christmas light shows, LI brothers build rainbow of hope

For the past 39 years in Deer Park, the Barbieri brothers have put on extravagant Christmas light shows at their childhood home. They line their roof with lights and fill their yard with colorful characters and cheery decorations, including reindeer, familiar faces from Disney and a train headed to the North Pole.

Andrew Barbieri and his brother, Joe, work on the Christmas display outside the house all year long. Together, they build the scenery and program the lights. They also raise money at the shows for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

At the beginning of the pandemic, Andrew was getting in his car and saw his neighbors across the street had a drawing of a rainbow in their window. The campaign “Rainbows Over Nassau and Suffolk Counties and Beyond" began in March and encourages Long Islanders to display rainbows outside their homes to spread positivity.

“I saw it and I thought, ‘Bam, that’s what I'm going to do,’ "  Andrew said.

Then he texted Joe with the idea: to build an electric rainbow that would light up and display messages of hope for their neighborhood.

Andrew has been putting light shows together since he was 12. As a child, he said, he was always “fascinated” by electricity and lighting. And Joe lends his own expertise to the effort — Andrew is an electric contractor and Joe is a bridges and buildings mechanic for the Long Island Rail Road. 

“My brother’s carpentry skills and my electric skills create a perfect team,” Andrew said.

They built an 8-by-16-foot arch and Andrew drilled 1,200 holes in it for the LED lights that bring the rainbow to life. Joe programmed the lights using the same system the brothers use for the Christmas displays — a program called Light-O-Rama. 

The pixels give off different colors to create the rainbow effect, and the system also has text messaging capabilities. Joe has programmed different messages, including: “This too shall pass” and “Thank you to our health care workers.”

The arch also depicts a sunrise and white twinkling lights going across the rainbow. Joe has also programmed timely messages for the neighborhood to enjoy.

“I added ‘Happy Mother’s Day’ to it,” Joe said. “I’m coming up with making an American flag for Memorial Day and the Fourth of July.”

“At the rate we’re going, this rainbow is gonna be up for a while. I can’t wait for it to come down, and the only reason is because I want coronavirus to be gone," he added.

In the meantime, Andrew said his neighbors are getting a kick out of the light display, especially because they only get to see such a spectacle by the Barbieri brothers around Christmastime.

“The inspiration was just to give joy to our neighbors, because everyone was locked in their homes,” Andrew said. “And it’s great; people on the block are all coming outside to see it.”

The shows begin at 7:30 p.m. nightly and the display turns off at 11 p.m. The show itself is six minutes long and plays on a loop. More information can be found on the brothers' Facebook page, called Lights on Liberty Street.

By Rachel Weiss

rachel.weiss@newsday.com@RachMWeiss

Rachel Weiss joined Newsday in 2016. As a real estate/living multimedia reporter, Rachel writes feature stories and contributes to and appears in on-camera video packages. She was the lead reporter on Newsday’s LI Acts of Kindness series.