| Well it is THE sign.. Actually it used to say Hollywood Land
but the last four letters fell down after an earthquake. Now the other
letters each have local corporate sponsors who ensure they are regularly
maintained and painted. |  |
 | Looking the other way
you can see the city hiding in the fog/mist/smog behind the observatory,
which is currently being refurbished. It too must be brought up to current
earthquake resistance standards. This landmark has also appeared in a number
of films. Although it is high above the city we found it is
difficult to see how successful it can be as an observatory. The sky just
isn't clear enough. |
| In the centre of Los Angeles is a smelly murky pond which is
surrounded by a fence. This is La Brea Tar Pits where oil and gases
continuously bubble to the surface as they have done for millennia. The
edges are steep and animals have fallen in and been unable to get out. These
model mammoths portray that having happened. |  |
 | In one area an
archeological dig in the oily ooze is continuing. They have found evidence
of thousands of animals which have become the prey of the pits. It has given
a major boost to the understanding of the ecology of the past. |
| Nothing in Hollywood is what it seems. This is a club known as
the Magic Palace where the guild of magicians holds court. Today it is a
very exclusive club. |  |
 | Advertising is
everything but this was something else. This advert is on the glass of the
top six stories of a twenty storey building. It's the biggest advert I've
ever seen. |
| This is one of THE things to see in LA: hand- and footprints
(plus an occasional hoofprint and even a nose print from one of the Marx
brothers) of famous people embedded in concrete plaques on the sidewalk
outside Grauman's Chinese theatre. I would have thought Arnie's feet would
have been much bigger. Definitely given the way he puts them in things. He
did come back, as Governor, but he is not flavour of the month in California
right now. Some of these are 60 years old, but there is one that is just a
couple of months old. |  |
 | I think there must be
a thousand Darth Vaders in the world and there was another one here.
Actually there were a number of folk dressed up and hustling for
photographs. Some, like Marilyn (in the background in red) and Gandalf (in
his pointed hat) were readily recognisable but others were less so, but then
we aren't current movie buffs. |
| Flagstones in the pavement celebrated artists in both the music
and the film world. Half the artists we had never heard of, but others like
Elton John and Whoopi Goldberg were more familiar. There are lots more of
these than the hand/footprints, and there is apparently a pecking order
related to their position along the sidewalk, but these can be bought
('sponsored') by friends or fan clubs of the artist concerned. |  |
 | Everything is bigger
and better in Hollywood than elsewhere in the US, as this stretched Hummer
shows. This is the current limo of choice. |
| We took a drive out into the Hollywood environs to look at the homes of the
stars. Not that we knew who lived where but it was just to get an image.
What did surprise us was how close together most of the houses are. |  |
 | Actually it isn't
much different to driving round Dore or Whirlow. The architecture is more
Spanish in influence but they haved little or no gardens, at least in the
front. Most have electric
gates and security systems but otherwise seemed quite ordinary. |
| They aren't small houses but neither are they as large as we
had expected. We drove round several areas since some addresses are more
fashionable than others. And some estates are bigger than others, but again
no different to the various parts of any city. |  |
 | The bigger houses
are in the canyons or on the ridgetops. This is on Mulholland Drive
looking out on the view below. Mulholland Drive is a famous road running
along the ridge looking down on the Los Angeles area. |
| The air is never clear and here we are looking from some way off.
Greater Los
Angeles is actually a number of intermingled cities and I'm not sure where
one ends and the next one starts. This is just one extremely built up area. |  |
 | One look
at the roads help explain the size of this metropolis. This is an 8-10 lane
freeway in the heart of the city. In the rush hour it is packed and often at
a standstill. |
| From the top of the ridge we spotted the Hollywood Bowl where the
Rolling Stones were the star attraction for the weekend. |  |
 | But back in Hollywood
are the studios, which are much smaller than I imagined. Whilst not the
grandest this was perhaps the ultimate studio of them all. The dwarves and
Mickey made Disney and as you can see here, are still supporting it. |
|