Notions of Art Turned on End in Echo Park

A landlocked cabin cruiser that sits on its nose has set a Los Angeles neighborhood on its ear.

The 35-foot onetime luxury boat is balanced precariously on its bow in a vacant lot in Echo Park, a residential area about a mile north of the downtown business district.

The empty space has been turned into an evolving outdoor art gallery by established local artists intent on displaying their work to those unlikely to visit conventional gallery and museum exhibitions.

Previous exhibits at the 2-year-old site have been more subtle than “Boat Drop,” the installation erected last month by Venice sculptor Adam Leventhal. It’s causing heads to turn, tongues to wag and cars to brake at 1478 Sunset Blvd.

Roger Steffens skidded to a stop the other day and jumped out of his car with his camera in hand to admire the boat.

“It’s wonderful, isn’t it? Absolutely marvelous,” said the actor and writer, who is an Echo Park resident.

“It’s really nice to see a place like this remembered with art. It’s good that all of the art doesn’t go to places like Beverly Hills.”

Art student David Leonard, also of Echo Park, was likewise toting a camera when he came to admire the boat.

“It’s a good L.A. monument,” said Leonard, 20.

Leventhal, 40, said he got the idea for the sculpture when he spied the boat being stored next door to his studio on Adams Boulevard.

Furniture designer Andre Kohler had at first hoped to repair the cabin cruiser and refloat it. But he had scrapped that idea and was planning to turn its mahogany sides into furniture when Leventhal asked for permission to turn it into art.

A steel pipe hidden inside the boat connects to I-beams buried in the ground to securely hold up the cabin cruiser.

According to Leventhal, the sculpture could be packing a boatload of imagery:

“L.A.’s a mess and a paradise all at once. It’s not the same as it was 5 minutes ago,” he said.

Or maybe this:

“L.A. is constantly falling apart. There’s a negative side, but there’s also a positive side. Things can be put back together in many ways,” he said.

Or this:

“Here is a symbol of the 1950s, the good life, affluence--in the middle of a low-income, immigrant neighborhood,” he suggested. The boat represents the Los Angeles of old, a time that has been “thrown off balance, on its nose.”

Or this:

Sometimes a fading, vine-covered old mansion is more beautiful than it was when it was the thriving plantation of the slave days, he said.

Those in Echo Park have their own ideas about the boat.

It represents the Titanic to retired merchant seaman Obie Livingston. “The movie, the history,” he said. “Good art represents a lot.”

Beer truck driver Eddie Maldonado said the sculpture’s message is simple. “It says, ‘Buy a new boat,’ ” he said with a laugh. “To tell you the truth, I wouldn’t know it was art without the sign out front.”

Wang Lin, a clerk at an Echo Park shoe store, said the boat is interesting--but the thing she’s most interested in is its safety. “I’m afraid it will fall down,” she said. “It’s in a very small area.”

Seven-year-old David Aguero said the sculpture represents hidden treasure to him--”Maybe something’s buried there, right underneath it.”

Children are often more curious about the art that is displayed on the vacant lot than are adults, according to Ernesto Montano, artistic director for the nonprofit group that commissioned Leventhal’s work for the site.

“Adults are surprised by what’s going on, but kids have all the questions,” said Montano. His Jovenes Inc. Art Park spends $22,000 a year from city and state grants to finance four exhibitions at the site.

The lot has been loaned to Jovenes Inc. by Echo Park lawyer Arthur Goldberg, who once planned to build a community law center on the site. He said artists can use it for free until the land is developed. Nothing is currently planned, he added.

Goldberg offers what he acknowledges is “not a lawyer-like answer” when asked about the liability of “Boat Drop.”

He’s not worried that the boat will fall--just that future displays there continue to be provocative, Goldberg said.