Fashion
Kobe Bryant Still Reigns Over Los Angeles on Hundreds of Murals
“There’s always a few athletes that cross over into almost superhero world,” said an artist whose mural became a site of mourning when the N.B.A. star died in a helicopter crash.
On the side of a gym in downtown Los Angeles, two figures with angelic wings — Kobe Bryant, who won five N.B.A. titles with the Lakers, and his daughter Gianna — are depicted together in the clouds. Near one feather, the words “Do not touch this mural” are sprayed in a faded white script.
No one has. The mural’s endurance is a testament to the legacy of Bryant, who died in a helicopter crash five years ago alongside Gianna and seven other people. There are more than 600 murals honoring Bryant around the world, according to one crowdsourced tally, a majority of them in Southern California.
As she waited for an Uber near the heavenly mural one afternoon, Keeley Black, of Hollywood, rattled off locations of other Bryant murals she had encountered. One is near Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood. Another is in the Fairfax shopping district.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen any of them be messed with either,” she said. “I think people really respect these murals.”
Before wildfires ravaged Pacific Palisades and Altadena this month, before the pandemic and Hollywood strikes brought film production to a screeching halt, it was Bryant’s death that broke Los Angeles’s collective heart.
Artists behind some of the murals say that they illustrate how Bryant captivated everyday people with both his “Mamba Mentality” work ethic, his slashing drives to the basket and fadeaway jump shot.
