All of the sudden a 8-foot tall white wooden ampersand appeared in the middle of the lot on the north east corner. I had no idea what it meant, but I was really happy to see it. To me it meant that someone out there is thinking about this vacant plot of land.
A little Googling produced an answer. The mysterious ampersand is a public project by Los Angeles-based artist Shannon Ebner. According to the LAXART web site:
The ampersand is a conjoiner; it signals an incomplete thought and acknowledges that there is more to be said.
This is part of a Shannon Ebner exhibition at the Hammer Museum which started July 16, 2011. Apparently this isn't the first time she's used an ampersand in her work. See this photo from a year ago in Milan.
I've been waiting for the redevelopment on this corner to get underway since I moved to this Del Rey neighborhood 11 years ago. I really hope, as the giant ampersand acknowledges, that there is more to be said...