mural ordinance – Echo Park Now

A Chango mural concept

One of the iconic symbols of Echo Park, and one that residents take a lot of pride in, are the colorful murals that decorate our streets. The Sunset Boulevard and Echo Park Avenue mural is one of the most iconic, but look around a little more and you’ll start to notice a myriad of new and old designs that give this neighborhood a colorful background.

Cock-fight mural. Flickr photo via Michael Taft

You may have noticed some changes happening at Chango, which is undergoing minor renovations under new ownership (Jenna Turner, who owns a Susina Bakery on Beverly Boulevard, and Fix Coffee owner Marc Gallucci). But the new owners weren’t prepared for the community’s reaction when they white-washed the property’s cock-fight themed mural. We’re glad they arrived at last night’s Echo Park Improvement Association’s Neighborhood Issues Committee meeting to address any concerns, and assure everyone that they didn’t mean to offend anyone by painting over the mural.

That corner has been through a couple of murals the past decade or so – first there was the more infamous painting of chickens by artist Aaron Donovan, a piece painted because of the corner’s “Chicken Corner” nickname. The original mural was removed when Chango put in windows at that wall. Then a few years ago, the cock-fighting themed mural took its place.

Jenna assured committee members last night that they did, indeed, get permission from the original muralist Richard Meinhardt via the new artist, by the name of Axis, to remove the piece. Pictured above is a new concept (not the final, final one yet) the new owners designed for the new mural, but at the EPIA meeting said that they were open to including a chicken in there somewhere.

One mural that was saved, probably due to public outcry from coverage on news websites like The Eastsider LA, was the Logan Street mural decorating the former Pescado Mejodo restaurant. Senior Fish has been renovating the corner restaurant for quite some time now, but surprised residents when workers started sandblasting the mural.

Jesse Pimentel represented Senior Fish at the EPIA meeting, saying “We certainly didn’t intend to offend anyone.” Today they will have a retoucher, who has worked on the mural, bring back the mural to its state before the sandblasting began.

The lesson here is that Echo Park loves its murals, and there are many community resources like the EPIA if there are questions about the neighborhood murals. We have to give kudos to the recently opened Red Hill, which kept a colorful mural on the Montana side of its building even after a complete renovation.

As for Senior Fish opening, they are expecting a (hopefully successful) visit from the health department next week, and may open as early as one month from now. Chango is re-opening on Saturday, and will keep the same staff along with the menu.

"Cine de Oro" by Ernesto de la Loza on Sunset and Mohawk in Echo Park

Last month, City of LA committees and departments held a public hearing on a possible new city-wide mural ordinance – one that would hopefully protect/preserve the city’s murals from land-use issues and graffiti, as well as foster an environment where new murals can be created. Long story short – the mural thing has been an issue for a long, long, long time in Los Angeles, involving law suits and billboard laws and unhappy artists. Echo Park has been a wonderful hub for colorful murals and activist art, including new artists like the French street artist JR, Cache, Banksy, and others (we even got a tour earlier this month of some of the city’s best and oldest street artists decorating the walls of Keystone Studios on Glendale Boulevard). And because Echo Park is historically a friendly environment for these murals, the new mural ordinance will definitely affect our neighborhood (and hopefully in a good way!).

Last week, Open Culture released nice summary of the mural issue (link via Curbed LA), along with a short documentary by Oliver Riley-Smith on the sad state of murals in Los Angeles in the face of graffiti and the white-washing of neighborhoods in the name of “redevelopment” (aka gentrification). The documentary features artist and activist Ernesto de la Loza, who has been fighting for years to save the city’s murals (of the 42 murals he painted over the last four decades, on nine remain). We believe he still lives in Echo Park (at one point his studio was also located here) and he once had several murals in the neighborhood – you can see his remaining piece, called “Cine de Oro,” on Sunset Boulevard and Mohawk Street (pictured).

Tag Archive for: mural ordinance

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