The four giant pairs of glasses are simple and striking: rendered in the crosswalks of an intersection in Lubbock, Texas, in white paint, tidy inside the bounds of the crossing lines. For years, they’ve been a beloved part of the city’s quirky downtown, a testament to its native son, the rock ‘n’ roller Buddy Holly.
Are they road murals? Are they public art? Or are they a safety hazard?
Whatever they are, the streetbound specs are now verboten, a victim of the Trump administration’s crackdown on artistic displays on the nation’s roadways.
“Anything on the roadway would have to be eliminated,” David Gregg, Lubbock’s interim director of public works, said at a City Council meeting last week. “We were put in a situation where we had to either remove these crosswalks or send them a plan for removal.”
In Washington, local officials jackhammered a road mural honoring the Black Lives Matter movement. Laredo, Texas, removed a road mural that criticized President Trump’s so-called border wall. And in Florida, city officials painted over a rainbow crosswalk that memorialized the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting, which left 49 dead.
“I don’t really feel like we have the wherewithal to do anything about that without trying to litigate it,” Lubbock Mayor Mark McBrayer said at the City Council meeting, talking about the pending removal.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy sent a letter to governors urging them to keep roads “free of distractions” as part of a roadway safety initiative he announced in July. “Roads are for safety, not political messages or artwork,” he said in a statement announcing the letter.
Texas state officials went on to underscore Mr. Duffy’s directive, warning that state funding could be withheld if municipalities refused to remove any artwork on their streets.
In a speech before Lubbock city officials last week, Mr. Gregg said the glasses design was well within the city’s established traffic rules, but it was difficult to challenge such a broad directive from Washington.
“I don’t think it was intended to go after the Buddy Holly glasses,” Mr. Gregg said of the Trump administration’s initiative. “Unfortunately, it did.”
The markings were installed by the city in 2020 to celebrate Mr. Holly, who was born Charles Hardin Holley in Lubbock in 1936. A pioneering guitarist in contemporary rock, Mr. Holly was killed in a plane crash at age 22 alongside fellow musicians Ritchie Valens and J.P. “Big Bopper” Richardson. The day of the crash would be immortalized as “The day the music died” by Don McLean in his hit song “American Pie.”
The Buddy Holly crosswalk is one of three artistic crosswalks in the city that Mr. Gregg said would have to be removed.
“It’s so unfortunate because it’s such a tasteful cross section, and people like it,” City Council member Christy Martinez-Garcia said of the Holly-themed crosswalk. “But what do you do?”
Ali Watkins covers international news for The Times and is based in Belfast.
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