Commissioned by the Lakeview Chamber of Commerce with taxpayer money, JC Rivera’s mural, ‘Morning Flow,” featuring his familiar yellow “bear champ” character he’s painted around the city for the past ten years, adorned the Paulina Brown Line stop for only two weeks. And as has happened before and likely will happen again, one of Streets and Sanitation’s renegade crews responded to a 311 complaint and wiped the work away with their too-familiar sludge-brown paint. The Lakeview Chamber wrote on Facebook, “the mural had quickly become a beloved part of the neighborhood and we were devastated to see it removed. Lakeview has a strong commitment to public art and we are working with the City of Chicago to resolve this issue.” At last report, hopes were high that the piece would be repainted. According to the Trib, “The city is instructing graffiti-removal crews to seek approval from a supervisor when responding to a request that involves public art.” (Ray Pride)
