After a lengthy legal struggle over a big cross in a Bay Area community, the city decided to pay more than $1.5 million to end the conflict. For more than 50 years, the 28-foot-lit steel and plexiglass Albany Hill Cross stood watch over the city of Albany and the East Bay of San Francisco. The Albany Lions Club, a local community service organization, claims that because Christians had been dragging crosses up the hill every Easter for years, the cross had been placed on the original landowner’s private property for the benefit of the neighborhood. Later, the city purchased the surrounding area, which was then turned into a public park. The original landowner granted the Albany Lions Club an easement to maintain the cross before sale.