Instead the restoration cost $125,000 and took 2.5 years. Vic told us that at first he "naively" believed that the sign could be fixed in three months for $30,000.
#NEON DRIVE GIRL FREE#
The motel owners, basking in free publicity, changed their opinion of Diving Lady and donated her $10,000 insurance policy to help pay for her repair. Mesa officials recognized the PR value of restoring Diving Lady, waived regulations, and expedited paperwork. "He just wanted it out of his parking lot." In fact, Vic later learned that the motel owner had been offering to sell Diving Lady as scrap metal for $300. "I think the sign would have been hauled off if another day had gone by," Vic said. Vic phoned the local media, and the fate of Diving Lady became a city-wide story by the six o'clock news. "I realized that if we didn't intervene, it was gonna be lost," he said. He knew that the massive sign would have no fans among code-enforcing bureaucrats and budget-conscious business owners. That ended on October 5, 2010, when a freak storm snapped Diving Lady's pole, smashed all of her neon tubes, and collapsed the sign onto the motel's parking lot.īy sheer luck, Vic Linoff, president of the Mesa Preservation Foundation, was driving past Diving Lady moments after she fell. Time exposure of Diving Lady's three-part neon plunge and splash. When she debuted in 1960 she was the tallest thing in the city, visible for a mile in either direction along Main Street. The locals called her "Diving Lady," and she advertised the outdoor pool at the Starlite Motel on the eastern edge of Mesa. Neon Diving Lady: Starlite MotelĮvery ten seconds a neon blonde in a bathing suit took a three-part plunge from a 70-foot pole into a splash of electrified blue water. Diving Lady's tiny ladder was put there by her creator he didn't have a crane tall enough to reach the top of the sign.
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