#101SlowJam: Garcetti tries to ease the pain of a freeway closure with a music video
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti summoned his inner crooner and released a music video Thursday to warn drivers of an impending 40-hour traffic headache -- the #101SlowJam.
Flanked by the Theodore Roosevelt High School Jazz Band, Garcetti sings a tune reminiscent of the “Slow Jam the News” segment on “The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon.”
“See we’re bringing down the 6th Street Bridge, making way for something new and the demolition will cause delays,” Garcetti says in the video. “But sometimes, just sometimes, you have to get your hands dirty to build something beautiful.”
“So on Friday night ... the 101 Freeway east of downtown will take a break for 40 hours of R&R ... and R&B.”
The music video is perhaps an attempt at blunting the pain of a 40-hour traffic shutdown that begins at 10 p.m. Friday. That’s when transportation authorities will cordon off a busy 2.5-mile stretch of the 101 Freeway so that demolition crews can begin removal of the 6th Street Bridge.
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The closure will run from the split of the 10 and 101 freeways to the interchange of the 5, 10 and 101 freeways, according to the L.A. Bureau of Engineering. Motorists traveling west on the 60 Freeway from the Pomona area will not be able to access the 101, officials said.
If all goes well, the freeway should reopen at 2 p.m. Sunday, just before the Super Bowl kickoff.
Officials say the 84-year-old 6th Street Bridge must be removed because of chemical deterioration in the span’s concrete. The demolition is expected to take nine months, and a replacement bridge is planned for completion in late 2019.
For more details on the freeway closures, visit the Sixth Street Viaduct project’s website.
The music was an original score written and performed by the Roosevelt High School Jazz Band in Boyle Heights.
“Thank you, Roosevelt, for making that slightly less awkward,” Garcetti says at the end of the video.
Staff writer Veronica Rocha contributed to this story.
Follow @bposton on Twitter.
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