Will Echo Park benefit from a city ordinance regulating murals?

"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).

The documentary, titled “Behind the Wall: The Battle for LA’s Murals,” claims that 60% of the city’s murals are severely damaged, and that between 2008 and 2009 the city spent $60 million on graffiti removal, but spent no money on mural restoration. However, we know in neighborhoods like Echo Park and Atwater Village, murals are being restored by the artists themselves – perhaps the money is coming from private donations (for instance, Friends of Atwater Village recently helped repair a mural on Fletcher and Larga in Atwater Village).

And to answer the question of whether or not Echo Park will benefit from a new ordinance, it comes down to funding. Of the three options the committees are considering, we’re hoping the city adopts a type of permit program as well as making neighborhoods like Echo Park an official mural district, so that hopefully we’ll get some money set aside for restoration.

Check out the documentary below, and be sure to check back later as we follow what the city does with the mural ordinance.’

Go to saveLAmurals.org for more information.

Related articles:

Talk Begins on Revised Mural Law. Echo Park Patch, November 4, 2011.

Is it street art or advertising? The Eastsider LA, March 4, 2011.

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