AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 Austin is losing several well-known street murals after the Texas Department of Transportation ordered the city to cover them, saying they violate state guidelines.<\/p>\n
The city coated over multiple murals on Thursday, including the \u201cBlack Artists Matter\u201d mural<\/a> on East 11th Street and the Texas mural on Guadalupe Street near the University of Texas at Austin campus. People who live in Austin said the changes feel like a loss of culture and identity.<\/p>\n PREVIOUS COVERAGE | City of Austin memo lays out street art that may have to be removed under Abbott order<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cKind of ridiculous. It wasn’t hurting anybody,\u201d said Orion Sun, an East Austinite.<\/p>\n Landry Knowles, an Austinite, said, \u201cIt makes me feel really sad and angry.\u201d<\/p>\n In some places, remnants of the murals could still be seen beneath the street coating.<\/p>\n The directive to cover what were described as \u201cpolitical ideologies\u201d came from TxDOT earlier this summer under the direction of Gov. Greg Abbott<\/a>. In a letter to the city, TxDOT<\/a> said \u201cthe current markings are not acceptable and do not fully comply with the Texas Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (TMUTCD) and related federal guidance.\u201d<\/p>\n Austin Transportation and Public Works confirmed it covered the murals on Thursday.<\/p>\n For some residents, the change went beyond paint on pavement.<\/p>\n \u201cIt gave the place character. Now, it’s just another black street,\u201d Sun said.<\/p>\n Knowles said the Texas mural \u201cwas a symbol of school pride,” she said. “The fact that it’s covered up, it erases part of the school’s identity.\u201d<\/p>\n Knowles also said, \u201cIt erases creativity.\u201d<\/p>\n Sun added, \u201cIt removes the uniqueness.\u201d<\/p>\n Comment with Bubbles<\/p>\n BE THE FIRST TO COMMENT<\/p>\n Some Austinites said they are hopeful new artwork will be created to replace what is now buried under the street coating.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 Austin is losing several well-known street murals after the Texas Department of Transportation ordered the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":360831,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133],"class_list":["post-362930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362930\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/360831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}