April26_2008

Botanical Glossary - Home - References Cited

Photos - The barred door in frames right and center opens onto the Cassiar Connector which allows six lanes of through traffic to pass between Second Narrows to Burnaby and all points northeast. The graffiti here transforms, or evolves every week or two so that there is fresh, larger than life paintings to behold.

Photos - The Leeside Tunnel has been a popular skate board retreat and graffiti magnet since about 2001 when one of Vancouver's favorite graffiti artists, Lee Matasi (nick named Avers) chose this spot to highlight his beautiful spray paintings.

Lee Matasi was one of the original graffiti artists who first graced the walls of Leeside with his colorful artwork. A memorial was held at Leeside tunnel on Wednesday, December 7th 2005 - many of Matasi's graffiti pals got together to do a major artwork display to honor their fallen comrade. Avers was Lee Matasi's graffiti signature. Lee was murdered outside a pub on Richards street in Gastown a few nights ago. Matasi with two of his friends bumped into a gun toting youth with a chip on his shoulder. A fight ensued, ending with Matasi being shot in the head - he died in the arms of his friend a short time later. The killer has been arrested, and the two people in the killer's group turned themselves in.

December 2005 notes: Leeside Tunnel started to attract skate boarders a few years ago when the Cassiar Connector tunnel was completed and this tunnel was blocked off. It wasn't long before graffiti artists went to work to decorate the walls and skate boarders built home made ramps for skate boarding. Leeside's location at the South end of Empire Bowl ensured a certain amount of privacy for skate boarders and artists which made Leeside a popular place. Over the last year vandals started burning the home made ramps, causing the City of Vancouver to deem that Leeside was no longer a safe place to skate board. A few months ago the City brought a truck loads of gravel in to fill up the floor area to discourage skate boarding - until now. The gravel has been removed for the memorial (December 7th) and hopefully will stay removed.

Skate boarders need a place to play. Long live Lee Mastasi's memory.

Click here for more photos of Leeside Graffiti in East Vancouver for this day.