Past Vandalism

A terrible sadness came over the steps in 2018 – quite literally. The Micheltorena steps/#staircandy were actually quite respected from 2015 through 2017, with minimal tags and graffiti until early 2018, when the red Love Hearts were graffitied with sad faces and tears, and by 2020 the full artwork was vandalized with tears the whole way down it touching all the rainbow colored steps. It was a local guy who’s aim is to bring sadness, which is the complete opposite of Carla and Mandon’s intention. When someone pointed this out to him on his Instagram profile, he even went so far as to claim “those hearts have always been sad”, as if the original concept were his, as can be seen in this screenshot of his Instagram page:

When Carla’s paint team did a repaint…

September 2018 repaint of #staircandy in progress.

…he came straight after to vandalize, and turn the Stairs sad.

Sad heart vandalism, done shortly after the 6 Sep 2018 repaint, captured by @socalstairclimbers on 6 Oct 2018

It got to the point where the paint team didn’t want to repaint again, and in the last year, the sad tears and crying faces stayed, and more tagging and graffiti overran the Stairs:

This sad mess, including an extra, malformed sad blue heart is NOT what the original artists intended when they conceived and painted #staircandy as a happy and uplifting artwork

The visual blight was so bad that in April of 2022, someone took it upon themselves to repaint the two #staircandy flights of the Micheltorena stairway, grey. I (Carla) don’t blame them. The steps looked terrible, not what they were intended at all.

#staircandy was gray painted over in April of 2022 – we do not know who who did this

 

Video interview from immediately after the 25 May 2022 restoration of #staircandy

 

Vandalism Post Restoration

As of 4 July 2022, there have been 3 vandalisms of #staircandy by lonesometown9
The first occurred was first observed on 4 June 2022, and restored that same day. Here is a video that documents this first instance vandalism and repair.

Here is a before and after photo of the 1st vandalism event.

Here is an Instagram post by lonesometown9 from 24 Jun, that likely documents the first vandalism prior to the 4 Jun repair, though it was posted on 24 Jun prior to the second vandalism event.

 

The second instance occurred shortly before and prior to Friday, 1 July 2022, and was repaired by Chris Westbrook the same day.

[Photo evidence here]

The 3rd Instance occurred after the 2nd repair on 1 July and before the morning of 3 July when it was first spotted by local stair-walkers.
Here is a before and after photo of the 3 vandalism of #staircandy.

Here is the vandalism #3 repair crew shortly after completion of the repair.

Three vandalisms of #staircandy have occurred in just under a month. At this rate #staircandy will need to be repaired 36 times per year.
At present, nearly all the paint purchased for the restoration has been used for the restoration and three repairs.