INITIATIVE: Meet the anonymous artist installing bus benches at neglected stops on L.A.’s Eastside.
On a Sunday afternoon earlier this month, I find him at Valley and Soto, laying out slabs of wood and power tools. He is decked out in a bright waq’ollo mask typical of the Peruvian Andes (imagine a balaclava with a mustachioed face embroidered on it). The mask is to protect his identity; he prefers to remain anonymous.
Over the past 11 months, the artist has surreptitiously installed more than a dozen wood benches around the Eastside, and he has it down to a science: He props a ladder next to the bus sign, slips a handmade wooden bench over the pole and proceeds to screw, hammer and glue it into place. In about 15 minutes, the stop has a brand-new bus bench.
“This is allegedly the new biotech corridor,” he says, gesturing at the neighborhood around us. We are less than half a mile from LAC+USC Medical Center. “But they don’t care about the health of the people already here. It’s like the city has refused to build benches for them.”
But:
Other benches (particularly those attached to sign poles) have been removed. Some disappear outright, others are broken into pieces and abandoned nearby — no easy feat, since the artist anchors them with cinder blocks and uses professional hardware.
“I work in the art industry as a carpenter,” he says. “I use specific hardware to attach the benches … so you really have to demolish it.”
Who would do such a thing?
