My home town of Fullerton, California has a sad history of painting over priceless public art. As far back as 1939, city leaders decided to paint over Charles Kassler's WPA fresco Pastoral California. In 1963, the Fullerton Police Department painted over another WPA mural "The History of California." Back in 2008, city council was talking about painting over the Lemon Underpass murals. Then city council member (now OC Supervisor) Shawn Nelson was quoted as saying, "We need to get rid of that crap, like, right now." And just this month, in 2014, some short-sighted Fullertonians painted over the iconic Norman Rockwell murals which graced the wall of Ross Publications for the past few decades. Here's what one of the murals looked like:
And here's what the wall looks like today.
Oh, Fullerton, when will you learn?
