The job to repair and repaint the historic Crenshaw Wall was supposed to be wrapping up in February, but construction has barely started. The reason? The threat of El Niño and an unexpected layer to the approval process, according to Jason Foster, the chief operating officer of the nonprofit Destination Crenshaw.
Construction near a L.A. Metro line
Foster, who oversees the project, says the group learned last year it had to get additional approval to start repairs because construction could impact the Crenshaw/LAX K Line extension, which runs through the area near 49th and Crenshaw.
“Because of the Metro line, our project has been lumped into an approval process that brings in different entities to approve construction,” Foster says. “This is something that not only Destination Crenshaw, but other developers, have to go through.”
Foster says he was asked to submit more documentation last year to the city committee that oversees major transit and transportation work, which he did.
The approval, LAist just learned, has since been granted. But the project has now been delayed about five months.
“As artists we are always ready and pumped up to do the artwork, but when things don’t happen right away, we don’t get bent out of shape, we just keep pushing forward until the flowers start to bloom."
— Mural artist Eric “Cre8” Walker
Plans had already been on hold once before due, in part, to the pandemic.
Threat of rain
Weather has also been an issue. There was a prediction for a big El Niño event to hit Southern California this winter but, while there have been some rainy days, the worst of it has so far bypassed Los Angeles.
“As artists we are always ready and pumped up to do the artwork, but when things don’t happen right away, we don’t get bent out of shape, we just keep pushing forward until the flowers start to bloom," says Eric “Cre8” Walker, one of the artists with the collective Rocking the Nation (RTN) that’s painting the new mural.
Walker says he and his fellow artists have done the preliminary sketches for the art, which have been approved.
Fixing up the wall has long been a dream for Walker. About 10 years ago, the RTN collective started a campaign to repair the wall, which has been used as a canvas for local L.A. artists since the ‘70s.
Next steps
It’s not clear when the work on the wall will commence — or how long it will all take — but Foster says that prep work has begun. He reports that construction crews have laid down concrete traffic barriers and are restriping the street.
The remodel of the Crenshaw Wall is part of a larger, $100 million public-private project to help redevelop the neighborhood. The project, which shares its name with the nonprofit group that oversees it, Destination Crenshaw, has been described as a “1.3 mile arts and culture open air museum that celebrates Black L.A."
Along with the repairing and repainting of the wall, there’s plans for parks, art installations and streetscapes — some of which are already under construction.
The delays are a frustration, but “it is a necessary inconvenience to safeguard the community and ensure the construction is up to standards,” says Rhonda Mitchell, the communications director for L.A. City Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson's office.
Harris-Dawson led the discussion with other Black leaders in L.A., including the late rapper Nipsey Hussle, back in 2016 to come up with a plan to revitalize the area. He has said the Harlem neighborhood was a model for the project.
Of course, I believe that [progress] probably would have been here much quicker had Nipsey still been with us. But I still see growth and opportunity happening.
— Crenshaw resident Kelsie Traylor
The community weighs in
As the Destination Crenshaw project hits another pause, it’s getting mixed reviews by community members. Some say there’s still things they don’t know about it.
Resident Kelsie Traylor grew up off of Slauson and Crenshaw. Traylor says she has not heard the updates about Destination Crenshaw since Hussle, an early Destination Crenshaw supporter, died in 2019.
She says she’s not surprised by the slowness of new developments because she’s seen developers drag their feet when it comes to projects that could uplift disenfranchised Black communities. But she’s seen new or renovated businesses popping up like the recently reopened Dulan’s, the new Fully Loaded clothing store and Ora, formerly known as Hot and Cool Cafe, a renovated coffee shop and community space.
“Of course, I believe that [progress] probably would have been here much quicker had Nipsey still been with us,” she says. “But I still see growth and opportunity happening.”
Lawrence Ross is a partner in The Metaphor Club, a Black-owned co-working space and educational center on Crenshaw Boulevard that has worked with Destination Crenshaw. He says there tends to be a lack of distrust when new developments come by.
“We’ve been rocked often by redevelopment, for example, eminent domain with the freeways being built through our neighborhoods or neighborhoods being split like the West Adams neighborhood,” Ross says.
But when it comes to Destination Crenshaw, he says he's not worried about a timeline for when the project will be finished.
“I think we understand what the grand project is supposed to be, but I don’t think there’s political pressure or owners like ourselves for everything to be wrapped up at a particular point in time,” Ross says. “They’ll get to it when they get to it.”
Tyrone Nance, the founder of the non-profit It’s Bigger Than Us, has eyed other redevelopment efforts in Crenshaw with a healthy dose of cynicism.
“They can be very capitalistic,” Nance says. “It seems like they’re preparing for things like the Olympics and the World Cup, and trying to put a Band-Aid on the things that they need to fix, which is more job employment … inflation is high, food is high, education is down. It’s horrible right now. We can’t paint over things that we need to actually try to fix.”
Clarification
Updated, Jan. 25: This story has been updated to reflect the full context of remarks made by nonprofit organizer Tyrone Nance and to make clear that Nance was not criticizing the Destination Crenshaw project. Nance was speaking generally about other development projects he’d seen in the area.
