LADOT To Close Streets, Remove Traffic Signals As Giant Rock Makes Its Way To Museum District
LOS ANGELES (CBS) — LA's Transportation Department announced Monday a series of street closures that will begin Wednesday night to make way for the convoy moving a 340-ton boulder to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on Wilshire Boulevard's Miracle Mile.
The city will close streets and temporarily remove street lights at 60 intersections along the route from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. between Wednesday and Friday.
The 21 1/2-foot-tall megalith, which is midway through a 105-mile, 11-night journey from the Stone Valley Materials quarry in Riverside County, is scheduled to arrive at LACMA on Saturday morning.
The rock will be part of the permanent exhibit "Levitated Mass," designed by artist Michael Heizer's. The piece will serve as a grand entrance to the LACMA complex on the museum's north side,
Once complete, visitors will pass beneath the huge boulder through a 456-foot slot carved under the rock.
Overnight Wednesday, roads will be closed ahead of the convoy's route west on Pacific Coast Highway from Magnolia Avenue in Long Beach and north on Avalon Boulevard to the Carson city limits.
Thursday night, the rock will travel north on Vermont Avenue, west on 190th Street, north on Normandie Avenue, west on Artesia Blvd, north on Western Avenue, east on Florence Avenue and north on Figueroa Street.
On its scheduled final leg, the convoy will travel north on Figueroa Street, west on Adams Boulevard, north on Western Avenue, west on Wilshire Boulevard, north on Fairfax and east around the block on Sixth Street to its permanent home on the museum's north lawn.
The Transportation Department warns residents to "use caution if driving on the moving route streets during this timeframe and obey all LADOT, Los Angeles Police Department and County of Los Angeles officers' directions."
Emmert International — which is coordinating boulder's journey — will foot the bill for the estimated $203,400 cost of staffing the street closures.
Those interested in tracking the rock's progress can follow the mass on its Twitter page, @LACMARock.
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