6th Street West Mural in Billings Damaged, Repairs Planned

Earlier today, on the Billings Customer Service Watchdog page on Facebook, a local named Jim Bond pointed out a new issue at the 6th Street West Underpass project. The mural located on the overpass was damaged, taking paint and more with it.

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A Big Mistake

At this point, the underpass project seems to be past schedule, with the original plan to have it finished in just 50 days.

The project started back in April, on the 14th, with the plan to reconstruct the Underpass Avenue and State Avenue intersection and the 6th Street West and Central Avenue intersection.

The goal is to improve traffic operations in the south-central Billings area with new traffic signals, a new storm drain, lighting upgrades, better pedestrian options, and upgraded signage.

A High-Pressure Whoopsie

With the post on the Facebook group going viral rapidly, local artist and creator of the mural... Elyssa Leininger... took to the group to inform Billings she had been made aware of the issues at the mural.

According to Elyssa, the project leads have been in contact with her since the start, to ensure the mural remains intact, and even had plans to apply a second coating of the protective (anti-graffiti) coating as the project started wrapping up.

However, even after meeting with the artist to discuss the best way to clean the mural, somewhere communication lines got crossed, ending with the mural being power washed with a very high-pressure washer... ripping paint and the protective coating from the concrete.

Good News... Though Painful

However, those in charge of the project immediately responded to Elyssa about her concerns with the damaged mural, and are now working directly with her to restore the beautiful artwork.

What are your thoughts?

Do you enjoy seeing this artwork across Billings? Do you wish we had more scattered about? Let us know on App Chat or on Facebook.