Within a week of the fog-shrouded helicopter crash that killed Kobe Bryant, 25,000 candles had been placed on the concrete outside Staples Center, their light flickering upon countless rosaries. A wooded hillside in Calabasas is where Bryant’s life came to a close on Jan. 26, along with the lives of his daughter Gianna and seven others, but the street outside his workplace is where the mourning began.
“People didn’t know where else to go,” says Lee Zeidman, Staples Center’s president, who has been in charge of the arena during its entire two-decade existence.
Zeidman was at work that Sunday morning, overseeing rehearsals for the Grammy Awards that night, when the news of Bryant’s death reached him.