Re: new chicken mural at Chicken Corner. Chicken Corner received a statement from one of the artists, Robert Meinhardt, who says it is a coincidence that their mural hatched on the same morning as the official groundbreaking across the street for new condos -- the same project that some people read as a symbolic if not physical demise of Chicken Corner (the "place").

In response to queries about the mural by Chicken Corner (the blog), Robert Meinhardt wrote:

I'm Billie [Stone's] husband who painted that mural along with Billie and an anonymous friend of ours. We got permission through the owners, because Billie works there [at Chango]. It was really just because the old mural had been covered with graffiti and some negative messages aimed at Chango's customers. The building's landlord Sergio was really pissed off, and so we decided to paint a new mural that was bigger and better and hopefully wouldn't suffer the same fate as the previous one. I wanted to paint a cockfight because that is what this corner is famous for, historically. My wife and I love this neighborhood and wanted to show respect for its history in these times of changes and resentment. I realized certain people might have a problem with animal cruelty issues, but I really don't give and shit, and those are the type of people I like to offend anyway. Evalia who owns El Batey likes the new mural and so does Sergio the landlord, that's all that really matters to me. My other friend (who helped paint it) and I, have been working on a book about the L.A. river called "The Unofficial Guide to the L.A. River" . ... Its website www.uglar.com should be up in about 3 weeks. Chaz Bojorquez and some other important people have been involved, and it should be really interesting for anybody who is into Los Angeles history or art. As for your write up so far, I'm from Chicago, not Ohio ... but we have been here for a few years now and like to consider ourselves locals. ... No we didnt know about the opening of the condos or whatever but that's pretty funny.

Yes, sometimes fate (in progress) has a sense of humor.