More than eight years after Ankrom’s sign went up, he got a call from a friend who noticed some workers taking it down. His guerrilla sign had passed the Caltrans inspection. Courtesy of Richard AnkromĪnkrom had hoped he could get his sign back from Caltrans after they took it down he figured he would hang it in an art gallery.
Then one of Ankrom’s friends leaked the story to a local paper.
As soon as the sign was up, Ankrom packed up his ladder, rushed back to his truck, and blended back into the city.įor about nine months, only a small group of people knew that the Interstate 5 shield hanging above the 110 freeway was a forgery. The whole installation took less than 30 minutes.
He positioned his ladder over the razor wire and made his way up to the catwalk under the sign, nearly 30 feet above the highway. On August 5, 2001, Ankrom parked his truck and went to work. But he felt it was too late to turn back. He feared he could get arrested, or worse - drop the sign or one of his tools on the cars driving underneath. He even made a Caltrans contractor-esque decal for his pick-up truck. He cut his hair, bought some work clothes and a hardhat and an orange vest. Ankrom planned it with the precision of a bank heist. Then came the next phase of the project: the installation. Courtesy of Richard AnkromĪs a finishing touch, Ankrom signed his name on the back with a black marker, like a painter signing a canvas. If he was successful, no one would know that the signs weren’t put up by Caltrans. He copied the height and thickness of existing interstate shields, copied their exact typeface, and even sprayed his sign with a thin glaze of overspray of gray house paint so that it wouldn’t look too new.
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Most importantly, Ankrom consulted the MUTCD, The Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, which provides “uniform standards and specifications for all official traffic control devices in California.” Courtesy of Richard AnkromĪnkrom wanted his sign to be built to the exact specifications of Caltrans, which were designed to be read by motorists traveling at high speeds. He dangled over bridges to measure the exact dimensions of other signs. Freeways signs and holding up pantone swatches to perfectly match the paint color. He would call it an act of “guerrilla public service.” Courtesy of Richard AnkromĪnkrom started by studying L.A.
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He also decided that he would take it upon himself to install it above the 110 freeway. It was clear to Ankrom that, the California Department of Transportation (known as Caltrans) had made a mistake.Īnkrom, an artist and sign painter, decided to make the Interstate 5 North shield himself. The I-5 exit wasn’t indicated on the green overhead sign. He looked up at the big green rectangular sign suspended above and realized why he missed the exit all those years ago. Years later, when Ankrom moved to downtown Los Angeles, he was driving on the same stretch of freeway where he’d gotten lost before. And for some reason, this stuck with him. As he passed through downtown Los Angeles, he was going to merge onto another freeway, the I-5 North. Twenty years earlier, Ankron, then living in Orange County, was driving north on the 110 freeway. They had gathered to commit a crime - one Ankrom had plotted for years. In the early morning of August 5, 2001, artist Richard Ankrom and a group of friends assembled on the 4th Street bridge over the 110 freeway in Los Angeles. Mostly, when we see these things, we grumble on the inside, and then do nothing. But not Richard Ankrom. Maybe a door that opened the wrong way, or a poorly painted marker on the road.
At some point in your life, you’ve probably encountered a problem in the built world where the fix was obvious to you.
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