1969

All week we've been driving by these gigantic, ambiguous billboards featuring only a rough sketch of the Statue of Liberty, and the text "1969" on it. I've been resisting the urge to research it online because I thought it was some tricky marketing ploy for a film or something. It's plastered on the side of our hotel and the front desk manager didn't even really know what it meant.

I finally caved in today, and I was surprised to find that it is actually a 1st amendment rights protest by a a billboard artist named Michael McNeilly relating to Los Angeles' new billboard regulations.

The L.A. Times wrote this about the controversy:

Art and commerce aren't incompatible, but in McNeilly's case they're indistinguishable; as L.A. officials try to enforce a moratorium on billboards, he's pulling his Statue of Liberty stunt on other buildings, daring the city to engage in another losing 1st Amendment battle. If the patriotic images should be replaced with movie ads after the legal dust has settled -- well, an artist's got a right to make a living, right?

Read more about it here, here and here