So-Called "Mural" Finally Gets Painted Over On West Broadway...

Photo By John Hoff

Months ago, I called 311 on some graffiti on West Broadway, a big "tag" (piece of graffiti) on top of a vacant furniture store which read (if I recall correctly) "SICK SHOCK."

To my amazement, I received an email reply from the 311 system, bearing a response I'd never had before to calling in graffiti, something I do almost daily, and sometimes half a dozen times a day.

Waiting at a bus stop? Time on my hands? Call in the graffiti. Call in the potholes. Call in the vacant yards needing to be mowed. Do something useful instead of twiddling thumbs, waiting for the bus.

But a response on this tag took a long time, And then, finally, I got a very odd message from the 311 system...

Supposedly, the plain black and white letters saying "SICK SHOCK" were somebody's idea of an artistic mural. Strange but true! 

I could hardly believe this response. I was getting set to call the office of Don Samuels (who actually responds to our neighborhood needs, though he's not Hawthorne's council person) and say to him, "Don, what's up with THIS? How can they call this crap a MURAL? Isn't there some kind of committee to decide this stuff and overrule a designation like that?"

So, yeah, I was ready to contact Don Samuels and say all that stuff when, unexpectedly and inexplicably, the graffiti just got painted over and disappeared. After they claimed it was a mural...they just painted it over.

Well, no matter. Maybe somebody just got some good sense. Maybe graffiti will finally stay off that wall. I'm not holding my breath, though.