Cruising San Mateo ("Chevy on a Stick")

The story

In 1991, Tucson artist Barbara Grygutis was commissioned to create a public sculpture as part of a road-widening project at the intersection of San Mateo and Gibson Boulevard SE. What she delivered was 'Cruising San Mateo' (officially titled 'Cruising San Mateo I'): a real 1954 Chevrolet frame hauled out of an Arizona junkyard, encased entirely in turquoise ceramic mosaic tiles, and mounted 26 feet in the air atop a tiled archway. Funded through Albuquerque's 1.5% public art program at a cost of $75,000 for the project, the work immediately split the city down the middle.

A local radio personality rallied angry listeners on air, offended residents called the elevated car a 'monstrosity' and 'monument to waste,' and a newspaper poll found 57% of respondents disliked it. The public uproar grew so heated that the Albuquerque City Council launched a formal legislative review of the city's public art program ordinance. Opponents sneeringly christened the sculpture 'Chevy on a Stick'—a disparaging nickname that Grygutis welcomed, observing that art worth making should spark an argument.

Decades later, the insult transformed into an affectionate local moniker. Floating above the intersection without rubber tires—its ceramic-tiled wheels attached directly to the structural arch—the sculpture stands as a permanent tribute to Southwestern car culture, Route 66 nostalgia, and municipal drama. You didn't hear it from us, but Albuquerque ultimately fell in love with the exact piece of roadside absurdism it once tried to scrub from the map.