Tag Archive for: murals

Original mural alongside The Hedgehog at Mohawk Street & Sunset Boulevard

What the wall looks like now

Colorful murals are not only a common sight in Echo Park, it’s something the neighborhood takes a lot of pride in (depending on the artwork). While we’re not sure the erasure of a mural along Mohawk Street at Sunset Boulevard will capture the protests from the community like the Quinceañera mural did earlier this year, the whitewashing of the wall is a dramatic difference.

Erin West, who own The Hedgehog cafe on which the mural was located, planned on putting up a new, Echo Park themed mural when the wall was painted over, but business got a little busy. Prior to the election, Erin added the Yes on Prop 37 paintings, but some recent graffiti markings by, the tagging claims, the artist themselves protests the “hipster politics” on the wall. “I actually tried to track the crew down to give them a heads up,” Erin wrote in an email, referring to painting over the original mural, “but they didn’t exactly leave a forwarding address when I took over the lease.”

Erin is currently working on hiring a sandblaster to remove all paint from the brick wall. In the meantime, they are asking for any artists who may be interested in the new project to touch base via email at TheHedgehogLA@gmail.com

We have to ask all our readers: Did you like the original mural? Would you like to see a new mural, or is a brick wall cool with you?

Retouching the mural. Twitter photo via @andresjcruz

Andres Cruz on Twitter sent us the above photo yesterday, showing the progress made on the Quinceañera mural on the former Pescado Mojado building. The mural, painted in 1996, was being sanded off for the new Señor Fish restaurant when the neighborhood protested. Work stopped immediately, and the new restaurant owners hired an artist who had worked on the mural before to begin the retouching immediately.

Before restoration started. Photo via KCET

On Saturday, March 26, LA Works is partnering up with the Greater Echo Park Elysian Neighborhood Council to accomplish a unique community service project in honor of Cesar Chavez’s March 31 birthday.

Expert muralists, volunteers and civic leaders will oversee volunteers and LAUSD students in the creation of five to ten community justice and human rights-themed murals. The murals will be donated to schools and libraries around Los Angeles.

Andres Chavez, grandson of Cesar Chavez, will be a guest speaker at the event. He was “raised in the tradition of the farm worker movement that his grandfather, César Chávez, founded. He has participated in United Farm Workers’ marches, rallies, picket lines, union conventions, and political campaigns, including those for immigration reform.”

Former State Senator Richard Polanco (who helped make March 31, Chavez’s birthday, a state holiday in 2000) will also be a guest speaker.

The program begins at 9:00 am on Saturday, March 26 at Echo Park Lake. Full details and directions are provided to you after you register. You can register to volunteer by visiting the LA Works website.