Re “Mirabel faces Miracle Mile Chamber,” Sept. 24 issue

My husband and I bought our home on Masselin Avenue in 1968. We raised our five children in our home and they still love to visit with their children. They all consider the Miracle Mile a wonderful place to have lived their childhood.

They went to local schools, played sports at Pan Pacific Park (we called it Gardner Park), played ball in the street with the other neighborhood kids, loved Bob’s Big Boy [on Wilshire Boulevard], Van de Kamp’s, Du-par’s [and] May Company, and played in the gardens around the museum, hopping over the streams, having birthday parties on the large lawn. We felt that we were giving them the chance to be part of a community of other families. A touch of the small town in the big city.

How much of this life is available today for young families? The sweetness, comfort and security of living here is being upended by development. The saddest part is that so many young families are no longer able to afford to buy homes in this neighborhood.  The area is being overtaken with expensive apartments.

The Mirabel is grotesque in its size, and the rent that will be charged for the “amenities” are foreign to this neighborhood. This is not New York City where you can walk to the theater and fine dining, where there is no other choice. This is the Miracle Mile where you get in your car to go to the theater, fine restaurants [and] concerts. And, even with the [subway], people who pay these rents are not going to use it. Families with children will use the Metro.

The very limited number of low income apartments is not out of the generosity of heart, but to get more exemptions from the city.  My daughter suggested that the low-income rentals will probably have their own entrance so not to interfere with the rich renters. We have coffee shops so a coffee lounge is not a selling point. We have an upscale gym on Wilshire. We have many lovely moderately-priced restaurants. We do not need or want this large, out of scale building in our beautiful Miracle Mile.

Fran Hentz

Miracle Mile