Local News in Brief : Skid Row Sculpture Ordered Dismantled

Responding to complaints of drug dealing, Los Angeles police told a sculptor to dismantle a project he and two homeless artists have been working on in a Skid Row vacant lot.

Adam Levinthal, a sculptor who lives in Hollywood, said he began the project as a way of providing a “work of art to be supported by the homeless community.” But plans have backfired and one of the few clean gathering places for the homeless is being taken away, he said.

Police told Levinthal that after his project was cleared, a fence would go up around the vacant lot, on 6th Street between San Pedro and Crocker streets, to keep homeless people away. Levinthal said he wasn’t aware of any crime in the area during the two weeks since the project began. “I would hate for them to lose one of the only clean spaces they have, because of our project,” he said.

“There are no plans to put up a fence,” Walter Beaumont, an administrator at the Community Redevelopment Agency, said. “But the owner of the adjacent hotel has offered to pay for a fence, if the lot owner gave permission.”