(UPDATED WITH COST OF THE EVENT)

Baltimore kicked off the holiday season tonight with the lighting of the Washington Monument in Mount Vernon, giving the event this year a little extra flourish since it’s the 40th anniversary of the tradition.

Baltimore Ravens kicker Matt Stover flipped the switch, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake joined the celebration and there were choral singers everywhere, including the Baltimore City College choir and the Institute of Notre Dame Select Choir.

Fireworks lit up the sky and their smoke clouds formed puffy projection screens for the multi-colored glow from the lit-up monument.

The ceremony this year, including fireworks, cost $33,124, according a spokesman for the non-profit Downtown Partnership, which pays for the event every year from its budget.

Just over half of the Partnership’s revenue, according to its website, comes from the downtown property surcharge, about 15 percent comes from member businesses and 14 percent comes from grants from the City of Baltimore.   Another 11 percent comes from marketing and sponsorships.

Michael Evitts, a spokesman for the Partnership, said surcharge revenue is not used for the monument lighting event.

Here are some factoids about the event from a Partnership news release:

• There are approximately 84 strands of lights on the monument, each one contains 200 energy efficient Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) for a total of 16,000 LED lights.
• For the third year, the monument will be lit with LED lights provided by the BGE Smart Energy Savers Program These lights burn brighter, last longer, and use up to 90% less energy than traditional bulbs.
• Each strand of LED lights uses only 12 watts of energy.
• The colors of the Monument lights alternate each year. One year they’re multicolored, the next they’re all white.
• Each year more than 5,000 spectators attend the Monument Lighting.


Another view of tonight's Washington Monument lighting ceremony. (Photo by Douglas Birch)

• Baltimore’s Washington Monument is the first monument in the nation to honor our first president. (D.C.’s Washington Monument wasn’t completed until 1885, or 56 years after Baltimore’s was done.)
• Baltimore’s monument is 178 feet tall and the statue on top is 33 feet tall.
• It was completed in November 1829.
• The statue of Washington at the top of the Monument is made of three marble blocks, each weighing approximately 7 tons.
• The Monument is made out of white marble and the marble came from Cockeysville, Baltimore county quarries.
• By the mid-1980s, Baltimore’s Washington Monument needed major repairs to keep from crumbling.
  
• It was closed to the public in 1985 and re-opened in 1992 after a $314,000 restoration.