For the third consecutive night, the Los Angeles Police Department said on Twitter that it was forced to shut down the 6th Street Viaduct, saying it was due to “questionable activity.” [...]
The 3,500-foot bridge that connects Boyle Heights to downtown Los Angeles has been open to traffic for just two weeks, but it’s quickly become a popular spot for street takeovers, illegal racing, dangerous stunts and vandalism.
— LA Times
The 'party people' took over Michael Maltzan’s brand new bridge redesign within hours of its July 9th opening. Some reports indicated that at least 250 people gathered last weekend for a second night of what the LAPD called "illegal activity," which resulted in arrests and the attempted bombing of a KTLA reporter live on air. Pro skater Meklo Rivera pulled up later to showcase some risky moves on one of the span’s many inviting concrete arches, but the cops eventually shut it down.
Some are framing this as an organic, car-free outpouring of community. In a hard-line rebuke of their viewpoint, Mayoral frontrunner Kevin de Leon said: "Angelenos deserve architecturally stunning projects in their own neighborhood, and we won’t be deterred by a few scofflaws."
9 Comments
Very interesting (and fun) article here.
https://www.lataco.com/sixth-s...
I found that article to be absolutely distracting, twisted and lazy. The rhetoric of "we don't have parks hence we will trash the bridge" is lazy at best, criminal at worst. Also, it is not low-income neighborhood residents that are "making the bridge their own", its rich idiots that own 100k Dodge Demons but do not know how to drive them.
Us Angelenos could really do with some civic pride.
While the rich idiots make the most noise, but it's a safe bet that the "scofflaws" referred to by the losing mayoral candidate probably run the socio-economic spectrum.
C'mon Dr. don't you want to get a haircut in the middle of the bridge?
LOL
I have a soft spot for things being used in ways that they weren’t intended to be used. The base of the Brooklyn bridge for instance became a popular skateboarding area. Imo, a good civic structure has that kind of flexibility.
Yeah, its not the brooklyn bridge itself tho
It's news to me that Kevin de Leon is a "Mayoral frontrunner"....
There is also this sober article by Mimi Zeiger in The Architect's Newspaper.
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