This pin marks the Big Thing itself. If stopping, choose a safe and legal place nearby.
45.88830° S, 170.35651° E
FIELD GUIDE
The story
The MOSGIEL sign exists because one man thought his town deserved more notice.
"Basically it was an idea I had in July 1986, as I felt that Mosgiel should be put on the map a wee bit more," its originator, Mr Buckley, told the New Zealand Herald. Building started in early 1987. The seven letters, each about four metres high, were finally assembled on 25 July 1987, and four days later, on Wednesday the 29th, the sign was lit up by the Mayor of Mosgiel, the late Allan Seddon.
The model is obvious and entirely deliberate: the Hollywood sign, transplanted to a hillside above a small town on the Taieri Plain outside Dunedin. Borrowing the most recognisable piece of self-promotion in the world and applying it to a place of a few thousand people is either very cheeky or very shrewd, and on the evidence of the sign still standing forty years later it was shrewd.
It has since become a reference point in New Zealand's periodic arguments about hillside signage – the Herald covered Mosgiel's story explicitly alongside the debate over a proposed Wellywood sign for Wellington, which is a curious kind of authority for a small town to hold.
You can walk to it. A moderate climb up a gravel path leads to the hilltop, with panoramic views over Mosgiel and the plain, and the letters at close range are considerably larger than they look from the town.
The sign is lit, so it also works after dark – which was, from the start, most of the point.
Photograph
This is a photograph, shown separately from the illustration artwork.
The MOSGIEL sign is a hillside landmark above the Otago town, spelling out the town's name in giant letters in the style of the Hollywood sign. The seven letters stand about four metres high and are visible across much of the town.
ACCESS
Hillside landmark. A safe public viewing/parking point should be selected rather than routing visitors onto the hill itself.
