A decade ago, more than 100 neighbors in Fort Lauderdale picked up paintbrushes and helped transform a pair of ordinary beachside intersections along Breakers Avenue into stirring works of art.
“I painted circles,” remembered Abby Laughlin, a business owner on the street. “It was a true community project. It was fantastic, colorful, and beautiful. It made the neighborhood stand out and look a little different and really put it on the map.”
The city-commissioned bright blue “Aquifer Intersections” paintings were designed by local artist Robin Haines Merrill and endorsed by the Florida Department of Transportation for their “traffic-calming” effects.
In a city video celebrating the artwork, then-Mayor Jack Seiler said the paintings would “save lives” – and a national 2022 study credited them with doing just that after fewer crashes were reported at the intersections.
But over the weekend, the artwork was blacked out with asphalt in the dead of night.
“I came in Saturday morning and saw that it had been painted over,” said Laughlin, who owns nearby Gallery 600. “They probably did it in the dead of night so nobody would interfere with them. We’re all bummed.”
For Merrill, it was a sickening blow. And there was one man behind it, the artist said: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
“My art was murdered by DeSantis,” said Merrill. “It’s anti-American. It’s destruction of public beauty and it’s completely against the law. It’s fascism.”
Now she’s determined to fight back.
A high-stakes battle
It was only the latest offensive in the governor’s crusade to blot out crosswalk and roadway art across the state, a purge that began last year with the politically pointed paint-over of the Pulse nightclub memorial rainbow crosswalk and has spread across dozens of cities, including the destruction of more than 200 pieces in Sarasota’s arts district and a checkered-flag crosswalk on Daytona Beach.
Last year, the FDOT ordered municipalities to remove all “non-compliant markings” on their roadways or face the withholding of millions of dollars in state transportation funds. Eleven sites were targeted in Fort Lauderdale, including the Breakers Avenue intersection paintings and the more high-profile Pride flag painting on Sebastian Street across from the city’s only gay beach, which was also blacked out early Saturday morning.
The eradication of the art is not only to remove “messaging,” according to DeSantis and the FDOT, but also to improve traffic safety as they claim the works can allegedly distract drivers. The latter justification lies in direct contradiction to the state’s previous Safe Streets initiative that supported the Breakers Avenue paintings for enhancing traffic safety.
“The governor decided to erase all the visibility of the LGBTQ community,” Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis told the Trident. “Then they got called out on that and they made it a safety thing and said, ‘We want to eliminate all street art across the state.’”
While most cities rolled over quickly on FDOT’s demands, Trantalis and his city, one of the top LGBTQ destinations in America, challenged the state in court on a claim the art was located on city-owned streets, not state roads, and DeSantis was encroaching on home rule and illegally operating outside his jurisdiction.
For Trantalis, the city’s first openly gay mayor, it was a high-stakes battle. The lawsuit was a cost to taxpayers and there were millions in transportation-related dollars at risk. Even though Trantalis, an attorney by trade, said he thought he had a winning case, the city settled after working out a deal to place a commensurate rainbow design in a private park near the Pride flag painting that was destroyed.
“We call the park the Circle of Love,” said Trantalis of the new celebratory space. “And we got our money from the state.”
Left in the dark, however, was Merrill and the North Beach Village neighborhood where her art was displayed. Her paintings had nothing to do with LGBTQ matters; its blue wave design signified the “connecting power of water.”
“The city stood up for gay rights, and I agree with that, but it wasn’t inclusive,” she said. “They didn’t include me. They didn’t stand up for artists’ rights.”
Beyond the Pride flag
Last September, she addressed the city commission to urge them to remember those rights, which primarily stem from the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 (VARA). That federal law demands, for instance, that artists be given 90-days written notice before their art work is destroyed to give them time to document or move it.
“Those are my designs and that’s my art work,” Merrill told the commission during public comments. “I’m not saying it’s any better or any worse than the [Pride] flag on the street. I’m saying I have legal rights to my art and it’s not allowed to be altered, damaged, or removed without my express permission and my involvement.”
Despite her pleas, Merrill was completely shut out of the process and the settlement negotiations and never given that 90-day notice. She’d like to sue DeSantis, the author of her art’s demise, but she said other artists facing similar situations have told her he has immunity as a public official. She’s now considering a claim against the city, which as the property owner she said should have provided her notice.
“What I’m told is that I can file a claim with the city for property damage,” she said.
Such claims related to VARA carry a penalty of up to $150,000 per piece of art. Trantalis said the city didn’t destroy her art and therefore isn’t responsible.
“She’s been slighted by FDOT, not the city,” he said. “They have authority over the streets. We have nothing to do with it. We didn’t take it away. FDOT took it away. FDOT obliterated the design.”
Merrill is consulting with artists from Sarasota. That arts-rich city, after receiving the threatening memo from the FDOT, rushed last August to comply by destroying more than 250 pieces of roadway and crosswalk. The city provided no notice to the artists, many of whom have already filed claims against the city. A federal lawsuit is also in the works that many believe could become the largest VARA case in history.
“The city hired me as an artist, that’s a city street, and they have legal, moral and ethical obligations to me – not just the Pride flag,” Merrill said.
But she retains a special ire for DeSantis. She said she believes he’s destroying the state’s art work for both political and personal reasons.
“It’s coming from hate,” said Merrill. “I think he has some personal issues and I think he’s filled with darkness. The same color as the asphalt he just put over my art work.”
The Florida Trident is an investigative news outlet focusing on government accountability and transparency across Florida. The Trident was created and first published in 2022 by the Florida Center for Government Accountability, a non-profit organization that facilitates local investigative reporting across the state. About the Author: Bob Norman is a senior editor for the Florida Trident. His work as an investigative reporter has won dozens of awards and led to criminal charges and the removal of several corrupt public officials. He can be reached at norman@flcga.org.
