Glassell Park's Glassellland sign is making a comeback. And this time it's official.

A neighborhood booster and guerrilla artist who goes by the name Justin had installed similar Hollywoodland-style signs in the community three times, and three times they were taken down.

But this time he has the blessing of the local city councilman, Gil Cedillo, he says.

The Glassellland sign will go up behind the baseball diamond in the community's eponymous park, and it will stay up for six months while city officials get feedback from neighbors about whether it should stay permanently or even move to a better location, Justin said.

An unveiling is scheduled for 7 p.m. on Aug. 15, during a city Friday Night Lights gang-intervention event.

The sign is about 10 feet tall and 70 feet wide, Justin told us. It was made of high-quality wood and covered with graffiti-resistant paint. It's modeled after the Hollywood Sign, which once read Hollywoodland in reference to a housing development below its perch.

He used money (more than $3,500) from an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign to buy materials that would make the sign more permanent.

“This is an art project that has stayed alive because of support from the local community and representatives,” he says. “It wasn't a project inspired by grant-maker guidelines, or that won an institutional contest. It was a project that was inspired by the local community and kept alive by it.”


Justin is hoping the sign will eventually be moved to a place where it “can be seen by people driving and who don't know they're in Glassell Park.”

One version of his sign ended up on a hill where it could be seen from the 2 freeway, but it did not have permits and ultimately came down, he said.

The 34-year-old is an art handler who recently completed education in order to transition to school counseling. The sign was a labor of love.

“This was really about looking at art inspired by the community,” he said.

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