{"id":67065,"date":"2025-11-27T07:06:37","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T07:06:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/67065\/"},"modified":"2025-11-27T07:06:37","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T07:06:37","slug":"lubbock-will-remove-buddy-holly-themed-crosswalk-after-federal-crackdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/67065\/","title":{"rendered":"Lubbock Will Remove Buddy Holly-Themed Crosswalk After Federal Crackdown"},"content":{"rendered":"

The four giant pairs of glasses are simple and striking: rendered in the crosswalks of an intersection in Lubbock, Texas, in white paint, tidy inside the bounds of the crossing lines. For years, they\u2019ve been a beloved part of the city\u2019s quirky downtown, a testament to its native son, the rock \u2018n\u2019 roller Buddy Holly.<\/p>\n

Are they road murals? Are they public art? Or are they a safety hazard?<\/p>\n

Whatever they are, the streetbound specs are now verboten, a casualty of the Trump administration\u2019s crackdown on artistic displays on the nation\u2019s roadways.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnything on the roadway would have to be eliminated,\u201d David Bragg, Lubbock\u2019s interim director of public works, said at a City Council meeting last week. \u201cWe were put in a situation where we had to either remove these crosswalks or send them a plan for removal.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Washington, local officials jackhammered a road mural<\/a> honoring the Black Lives Matter movement. Laredo, Texas, removed a road mural<\/a> that criticized President Trump\u2019s so-called border wall. And in Florida, city officials painted over a rainbow crosswalk<\/a> that memorialized the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting, which left 49 dead.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t really feel like we have the wherewithal to do anything about that without trying to litigate it,\u201d Lubbock Mayor Mark McBrayer said at the City Council meeting, talking about the pending removal.<\/p>\n

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy sent a letter to governors urging them to keep roads \u201cfree of distractions\u201d as part of a roadway safety initiative he announced in July. \u201cRoads are for safety, not political messages or artwork,\u201d he said in a statement<\/a> announcing the letter.<\/p>\n

Texas state officials went on to underscore Mr. Duffy\u2019s directive, warning that state funding could be withheld if municipalities refused to remove any artwork on their streets.<\/p>\n

In a speech before Lubbock city officials last week, Mr. Bragg said the glasses design was well within the city\u2019s established traffic rules, but it was difficult to challenge such a broad directive from Washington.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think it was intended to go after the Buddy Holly glasses,\u201d Mr. Bragg said of the Trump administration\u2019s initiative. \u201cUnfortunately, it did.\u201d<\/p>\n

The markings were installed by the city in 2020 to celebrate Mr. Holly, who was born Charles Hardin Holley in Lubbock in 1936. A pioneering guitarist in contemporary rock, Mr. Holly was killed in a plane crash at age 22 alongside fellow musicians Ritchie Valens and J.P. \u201cBig Bopper\u201d Richardson. The day of the crash would be immortalized as \u201cthe day the music died\u201d by Don McLean in his hit song \u201cAmerican Pie.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Buddy Holly crosswalk is one of three artistic crosswalks in the city that Mr. Bragg said would have to be removed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so unfortunate because it\u2019s such a tasteful cross section, and people like it,\u201d City Council member Christy Martinez-Garcia said of the Holly-themed crosswalk. \u201cBut what do you do?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The four giant pairs of glasses are simple and striking: rendered in the crosswalks of an intersection in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67066,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[10830,17343,10831,168,34570,170,169,34571],"class_list":["post-67065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lubbock","tag-buddy","tag-duffy","tag-holly","tag-lubbock","tag-lubbock-tex","tag-lubbock-headlines","tag-lubbock-news","tag-sean-p"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67065","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=67065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67065\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}