Have no Fear, Space Invader's Ghost Isn't Going Anywhere

From observing the web of white lines painted across 5930 York Blvd. Tuesday morning, it might have been easy for Highland Park residents to assume that the building was again the canvas for a public art installation.

Currently home to a tile ghost believed to be created by famed Street Artist Space Invader, the York Blvd. building was in fact undergoing an extensive repainting job.

Luis Lopez of Lopez Brothers Painting told Highland Park-Mount Washington Patch that the white lines were actually plaster that were being used to fill in the numerous cracks in the blue building's current paint job.

Lopez said his crew planned to leave the tile ghost, which has become a beloved landmark to local art lovers over its few months in the neighborhood, untouched.

"You're like the 20th person who has asked me about that ghost today," Lopez said. "We're not going to touch it."

The live/work building on York Boulevard is one of two spots in Highland Park now bearing the Space Invader mark, along with THIS Gallery on North Figueroa Street.

Though it's possible the tile tributes to Pac-Man and Space Invaders are the work of a copycat, the works appeared around the same time that Space Invader was believed to be plying his trade in the city of Angels.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Space Invader is believed to be one of two Frenchmen detained in April by the LAPD on suspicion of vandalism near the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary (MOCA) Art's Little Tokyo Gallery.

The two were believed to be in town for MOCA's Art in the Streets exhibit.