As many of you know, I was born in México. La Ciudad de México, to be exact. That translates literally to “The City of México” but if you really want to understand México and the relationship between its capital and the rest of the country, you should read that as an Ohio State alum.

Fun fact: Washington DC : USA :: México DF : México

DF is short for Distrito Federal which gets shortened to “El De Efe” and is another name for the city in which I was born.

I left EL DF when I was very young but I still have vivid memories of many places and things there. One of the most vivid memories I have is of the artistic sculptures that were put up during the Olympic Games of 1968 along different streets. I remember being very little and seeing those big sculptures along the streets in the back of my parents’ car and reading the names of the countries that placed them there and I thought it was the coolest thing ever.

Keep in mind this is several years after the Olympics took place. They were left there on purpose for all to enjoy as public art.

Ok, a little history:

As part of the celebration of the Olympic Games, the city and the Olympic organizers decided to create a “Cultural Olympics” that would “run” for the entire year of 1968. This consisted of 20 “events” in which artists from around the world could show off their talents and “compete” for appreciation. They did this in disciplines as varied as dance, poetry, youth painting, science, and sculpture.

The legacy of the sculpture contest is the “Ruta de la Amistad”. This was a 17 kilometer corridor of streets and roads in which 19 sculptures constructed out of concrete were placed. The sculptures ranged in height from 7 meters to 26 meters. They were originally placed 1.5 km apart but years and the constant growth of the city changed that. Many years after I left, many were damaged and some were moved for various political reasons.

Today, there are several restoration efforts to save them all and give them their former glory. Here are some pictures of some of the restored sculptures in their new locations:

Now, I’m not what you’d call an artsy fartsy kinda guy, but I dig this kind of public art. Hence my modest proposal for the LA Olympics:

Why can’t we do something similar in LA?

I don’t think it makes sense to create them in as large a scale as in México City, but I think there is plenty of room throughout the metropolitan area in which to place some form of public art commissioned by the LA Olympic Organizing Committee representing ALL of the countries that will attend the 2028 games.

That’s how we do it bigger and better than México.

There can be general guidelines (nothing taller than 10 feet, circumference of sculpture cannot exceed 20 feet, etc.) created for each sculpture so that a consistent space requirement can be developed for implementation region-wide. There are many empty spaces along major streets or avenues or even in public or private property that would work great for this if we keep the space requirements relatively small.

The artists would need to come from the countries participating and could be chosen by the Olympic Committees of each individual country through nationwide contests.

The best part about this idea is that the sculptures for each individual country could be placed within the neighborhoods that have a large population from that country.

Example: There is a large Vietnamese community in Garden Grove. Their sculpture could be placed there.

The wonderful thing about the greater Los Angeles region is that there are sizable ex-pat and immigrant populations for almost all of the world’s countries. Finding an appropriate spot where diverse peoples can celebrate their heritage would be an easy task.

Here are my initial suggestions:

• China – Chinatown
• Japan – Little Tokyo
• Ethiopia – Little Ethiopia (Fairfax Blvd.)
• Armenia – Glendale
• Korea – Koreatown
• Croatia – San Pedro
• Asia – San Gabriel Valley
• Central America – Pico-Union/Westlake
• India – Artesia

There are many others. You can use this handy map that the LA Times developed to explore the neighborhoods and cities that define metropolitan LA County and see all kinds of data for each neighborhood and city, including ancestry and immigration data.

There’s your rabbit hole for the day. Enjoy and let me know in the comments what you think about my idea. Where would you put the sculptures for certain countries?

What would the sculptures for certain countries look like?

Yours in the comments.