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Arts & Entertainment

Rock To Roll

'Levitated Mass' installation will be transported to LACMA from a quarry in Riverside this week via surface streets.

The rock will roll next week, Los Angeles County Museum of Art officials said today.

A 340-ton chunk of solid rock, intended to go on display at the museum near the La Brea Tar Pits, will start moving from Riverside County on Tuesday, it was announced this weekend.

"Levitated Mass" is artist Michael Heizer's planned grand entrance to the LACMA complex on the Miracle Mile of Los Angeles. Visitors will pass beneath the huge boulder through a slot to be carved under the rock on the museum's north side.

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Museum officials hope the unique trip will begin at a quarry near Riverside Tuesday, and arrive at LACMA early Saturday morning. The rock will hole up daytime and evening hours, and will move only in the dark hours.

See a video on LACMA's site of workers preparing the giant rock for transport.

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The direct route -- west on the Pomona (60) and Santa Monica (10) freeways -- is not possible due to inadequate vertical clearance and freeway bridges that cannot stand the strain, officials said..

Instead, the 8 mile-per-hour crawl will detour on surface streets. Traffic signals will have to be disassembled, power lines will have to be cut, and ramps built across medians before the giant rock mover can pass.

Then, all that must all be put back together, before the morning commuters hit the streets.

Maps call for the rock to head west on Van Buren Street through Chino, and wind around in Hacienda Heights before veering south on Colima Road into Whittier. Zig-zags will take the rock through La Mirada, Cerritos and briefly into Orange County, before the rock will finally head west across the San Gabriel River bridge at Del Amo Boulevard.

After heading north to South Street, the rock will cross west across Lakewood and then zig-zag south and west all the way to Ocean Boulevard in Long Beach.

The rock will finally cross the Los Angeles River via Pacific Coast Highway, then head north via Western Avenue and Figueroa Street.

The precise map has dozens of turns, and can be viewed at www.lacma.org/levitated-mass-map .

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