MiMo, that diverse group of citizens working to revitalize the historic Biscayne Boulevard MiMo district as a future destination, is working toward having Miami's famous Coppertone sign placed in the MiMo Biscayne Boulevard Historic District.
Besides MiMo, Mark "News Café" Soyka, owner of the pizzeria, Andiamo and architect Camilo Alvarado Boshell, developer of the adjacent Kubik condominium, would like to see the 35' tall Coppertone kid and her dog moved from its current location in downtown Miami to the MiMo historic district. Specifically, to Soyka's Andiamo pizzeria that once housed a General Tire store. That building, designed in 1954 by Robert Law Weed, has this great retro Jetsons look.
The sign would go where the old one once stood.Downside: It may be too fragile to move and the City of Miami may have a problem with erecting another sign in its city limits (unless, of course, they're billboards). According to a MiMo email, Coppertone has been approached to see if they want to get involved in the movement and restoration of the sign but the company isn't committing to anything at this point.
MVB applauds the effort MiMo puts into everything they do, but we suspect that the sign may overpower its intended location. As much as we love the sign, we like the animated one that use to greet people driving south at the Golden Glades Interchange even more. That one had the kid's dog pulling down the bottom of her bathing suit. It was smaller and would make a better fit in our humble opinion. In any event, Coppertone ought to fork over some money to at least restore the original sign in downtown Miami.
UpDate (7/30): Owners of the building have decided to restore the original design. Search for a new home for the Coppertone sign continues.
3 comments:
Its pretty amazing to see how many retro/historic signs we have all over the place. I was thinking about doing a piece on it. The Coppertone sign is as fresh as they get though.
Xavier, what's neat about the Coppertone project is that it's truly home grown-- from the product which was invented here, to the initial sketches by an artist from our local pioneering electric sign maker (Bengis), to the construction and erection of the original sign (Bengis). According to the MiMo email, Bengis is also interested in the project.
Isn't that Jodie Foster?
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