Los Angeles is a city defined by old sheet-metal signs that have iconic importance well beyond their actual worth. The Hollywood sign, the Beverly Hills sign, and, up until today, the Miracle Mile sign. That's because a woman driving a GMC Envoy brutally smashed to bits the well-known illuminated sign.
While most people outside of Los Angeles know about the Miracle Mile region only from a half-remembered lyric in a Billy Joel song, the section of LA houses a large number of historic Art Deco buildings, and, more relevant to us Jalops, the Petersen Automotive Museum. The signs are early 90s recreations of the original signs from the 1930s and 1940s, which makes the estimated value of the sign at $10,000 all the more surprising for those of us not intimately connected to the sheet-metal and neon sign world.
While no foul play is suspected, the sign did have some well-known rivals, most notably the Johnie's Coffee Shop sign right across the street, with whom the Miracle Mile sign may have once been romantically linked.
The sign is survived by two downtown one-way signs and a billboard advertising incredible savings on mattresses.
(Photo Credit: Park La Brea News)