Billboard off of Alpine Ave NW and Ann St. marks contaminated site with a deep Hollywood Connection

Filmmaker and Artist Kate Levy spent all summer discovering the deep history of one of Michigan’s most prominent businesses and the sites they left behind. GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Overlooking a busy corner on Alpine Avenue NW and Ann Street, a mysterious billboard stood tall for over a month, claiming the site it stood on to be a historical landmark. “I want people to experience remembering in a different way, so they remember more.” Artist and Activist, Kate Levy, visiting and teaching in Michigan as part of Grand Valley State University’s artist in residence program for the 2023-24 school year. “With the billboard, it’s like, ‘wow, I had no idea that this history existed!'” Levy referring to the plot of land her billboard overlooks, once owned by a bumper stamping and plating company called Gulf and Western Industries, founded in Grand Rapids.  The same Gulf and Western Industries that would go on to purchase a struggling Paramount Pictures, the same Paramount that would bring television shows such as SpongeBob SquarePants and films like The Godfather (Coppola, 1972) to screens all over the world. Levy, a filmmaker, choosing to mark the site with a billboard. While unconventional, Levy finds it played...