Does It Stack Up As Art?

The 22-foot tower of wooden pallets is officially a historic monument. It's unclear how serious members of the Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission were in 1978 when they designated Daniel Van Meter's "Tower of Wooden Pallets" a historic art monument. One later joked that "maybe we were drunk" when they recognized the 22-foot stack of crumbling, termite-infested beer pallets. Now the "artist's" heirs want to clear the land of feral cats, strange plants and the tower itself so a developer can put up 98 apartments which will make them millions from the 1.43-acre lot. But the tower is in their way - requiring layers of bureaucratic process, public hearings and detailed reports before the "sculpture" can go. Irish Art