QUICK TAKES - Sept. 29, 2009

Instead of blocking traffic on busy Wilshire Boulevard for three afternoon hours on Nov. 8, the Wende Museum Wall Project’s public-art installation “The Wall Across Wilshire” -- commemorating the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall -- will be temporarily constructed across Wilshire near the Los Angeles County Museum of Art shortly before midnight Nov. 8 and will be symbolically toppled at midnight by artists who will paint on the symbolic wall.

Justinian Jampol, president and founder of the Wende Museum and Archive of the Cold War, said Monday that the time was changed for the “Wall Across Wilshire” installation because the event was beginning to take on a “block party, street event” quality rather than a historical one.

The time change did not happen at the request of the city, Jampol said. “I think it’s fair to say they are pleased with the change . . . there will be less stress on traffic, but we could have left it in the afternoon if we wanted to,” he said, adding that though the event is still open to the public, at night it will be “more dramatic” and will tend to draw a smaller crowd interested in Berlin Wall history.

-- Diane Haithman