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I've had some business in Los Angeles over the years - not much, but I got there off and on. Depending on the airport you're flying into, depending on the landing approach your plane takes, and depending on what side of the plane you're seated on, the sign can come into view and it is quite large in the distance. I don't think I ever got over the thrill of seeing it - it is just so iconic - I really don't have the words to describe it.
I'm lucky to be able to see it from my apartment living room window, and even after 3 years it never gets old!
It's more or less directly north of where the LAX traffic pattern makes the U-turn to line up final approach.
So the right side of the plane can always catch a glimpse of the sign, but the left side coming from anywhere north-ish will have a closer view.
If you're coming from south or east you won't make that turn and left side won't see it at all.
It was in a bad shape when Hugh Heffner moved to LA, he started a campaign to get it restored IIRC. He did a lot civil rights and ending segregation too. The southern TV stations objected to him showing black entertainers and talking to them in his TV show, he stood by his values. And he gave a voice to Martin Luther King and Malcolm X in Playboy. Source: the documentary about him on Amazon Prime, highly recommended.
Also an interesting watch is the A&E documentary about the dark side of Hefner and Playboy: https://www.aetv.com/shows/secrets-of-playboy
It’s 12 parts and honestly could have easily been 10 if not less but it’s always worth exploring the duality of the man. No denying his social progressivism but he definitely wasn’t all shining light and I’m suspicious of anything that paints him as if he were.
His social progressiveness might have been more about wanting to get rid of morality laws in general, because they were getting in the way of his business expansion, than a genuine belief in those causes. Probably a mix of the two, even if he started out pushing for business reasons, getting involved in any cause gives one an opportunity to hear that group's point of view and a chance to become sympathetic to it. Either way, it ended being good for his fame and fortune.
Thanks for the tip. Thats why i love this site so much. You can get a very differentiated picture here.
Unfortunately he was also a serial rapist, though I don't think anyone's surprised about that one.
In GTA Online, you can reliably win the "Open your parachute closest to the ground" challenge by jumping off the top of one of the letters of the Vinewood sign and immediately opening your chute as soon as you have left the platform at the top of the letter.
If anyone visits LA I recommend hiking to the sign. The trail goes right behind the sign and the view is amazing on both sides.
Not the only Hollywood, and not the only Hollywood sign [1], thanks to some Irish humor.
[1] - https://www.thejournal.ie/hollywood-sign-wicklow-3867190-Feb...
I'm glad they dropped the "land" part. "Hollywoodland" doesn't have the same ring that Hollywood has.
I'll always think of it as "Hollywoo" https://bojackhorseman.fandom.com/wiki/Our_A-Story_is_a_%22D...
It's like dropping the word "the"
We save the “the”s for our freeways.
And the La Brea tar pits.
And the Los Angeles Angels (of Anaheim)...
Always makes me think of “The Rocketeer”.
That probably pins me to a particular generation.
Wanted to show that to my family. Put on rocket man by mistake. Was extremely confused for several minutes.
That movie was always strange to me as a person who watched it in kindergarten. It was in my memory peak cinema, with an amazing tie in of reusable cups from the best restaurant chain (Pizza Hut)that lived in my house for years later and I drank out of regularly. As a kid I loved pretending to be able to fly around the sky.
But I've never met anyone in my generation that has ever seen it and even people older than me barely remember it existing.
Rocketeer is among the finest action adventure movies ever made, and deserves to be hailed much more widely than it currently is.
The reason it is not is simple bad luck: out of all the movies it could have opened against, it managed to open against the single film that (at that time) could outdo it in its own action-adventure game, the defining work of the genre: Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Even Rocketeer couldn’t overcome that.
I’m from your generation and my only memory of the film was a lot of talking and very little action. Have you seen it as an adult? Curious how it holds up.
Wikipedia’s page is interesting, apparently its got a cult following now.
Oh man. That brings back memories. I adored The Rocketeer as a little kid. I had an NES game based on the movie, too, but I think I remember it being too hard for me.
If anyone hasn't watched the documentary 'Cadillac Desert' on the importance of water in the history and development of the United States Southwest, then I would highly recommend putting it on.
Is it based on the book?
Yep! The author makes a few appearances in the documentary
Hollywoo *
I wonder if its celebrities know things
I remember hiking up to the base of letters in the early 1990s. I think there is a substantial fence now.
Just took a long hike up to Mt. Hollywood on Saturday, next to Mt. Lee. So it was on my mind thanks.
People need to remember the Hollywood sign was for a housing development at the edge of town in Los Angeles. That's how long it's been, and we've added almost no density, and eternal sprawl.
We've added no density? The population of the city went from 500k to 4 million since that sign went up. Koreatown has over 50 thousand people living per square mile. Is there an imbalance between jobs and housing today? Yes, but to imply that no housing has been built since the 1920s or that the entire area is low density suburban sprawl is a whole lot of hyperbole. Here is the population density map for reference:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e5/LACounty...
Your own reference seems to confirm OP's point that sprawl, not density, is what increased. Relatively few places in the greater LA area have properly dense housing projects, and you just have to look across LA from vantage points along either Mulholland drive or Rancho Palos Verdes to see for yourself.
Plenty of opportunity for high-rise and even more mid-rise projects, but nearly everything is low-rise. Thankfully it looks like recent zoning changes will throw nimbyism to the wolves, but op is entirely right in describing how LA is essentially the epitome of sprawl.
NYC density: 26,403 people per square mile (source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_New_York_Cit...)
Hollywood density: 22,193 people per square mile
Koreatown density: 42,611 people per square mile
Source: https://maps.latimes.com/neighborhoods/population/density/ne...
Yes, greater LA area also has a lot of what people like to call “sprawl”, but it’s a big place and has many different neighborhoods. You also don’t need high rises for density - Paris is not all that tall, but at 53k people per square mile, it’s denser on average than NYC…
That’s because people want to live in low rise buildings.
The average person in California (and in the rest of the country) desires to live in a detached home that they own.
It is not wrong to want that.
However, it is definitely wrong to assume that high-rise apartments are “proper” density and that LA is doing it wrong. LA is the way the people live there want it to be. If you want high density and high-rise living, there are other cities that offer that.
The rest of this century is dedicated to undoing the zoning practices of a certain generation.
Millennials are entering the home buying market in large numbers now, and it turns out they want detached single family homes in quiet suburban neighborhoods, just like everyone else.
It is important to be very clear about this because the HN crowd seems to have a massive over-representation of people who like dense living arrangements: the vast majority of Americans want to live in a detached home that they own, and they want to transport themselves in cars that they own. They don't want to live in apartments, they don't want to rent, and they don't like mass transit. There are indeed some Americans who want to live in places like Manhattan, but they are a small minority. A large majority of the Americans who currently live in apartments only do so because they cannot afford a detached home.
It's important to be very clear: you're misrepresenting the options!
It's not a choice between suburbia and Manhattan. It's a choice between exclusionary, backwards suburban zoning (which is subsidized by denser development due to the increased cost of utilities for sprawling development), and literally any more sane option. Let people build duplexes, corner stores, local markets, and get rid of the cul de sacs. That's literally the core of the "density" people are talking about. Not Manhattan style high rises.
Saying that people (really any group, but millenials here) prefer suburbia because that's what you see them currently buying on the housing market, is ignoring the fact that the available housing stock probably doesn't match up to their preferences! Plenty of people are buying the "lesser of two evils" rather than their dream home. Plenty of people would choose something within walking distance of a decent park and grocery, if they had that option. But America, despite being built on the train and the pedestrian, has been rebuilt on the automobile and the cul-de-sac with single family home zoning. So people are buying what is available, even if it's not what they want.
If you doubt what I'm saying, check the prices of homes in prewar "streetcar suburbs" which are denser, but still have small yards, detached houses, and yet are near small commercial uses too. Plenty of people want to buy these and the prices have skyrocketed: it's illegal to build them now, so the supply is limited.
Right now, many adults in LA have to share a single family home with several other adults, living like college roommates, because otherwise they can’t afford rent.
Even just the european solution of mixing rowhouses and 3-5 story apartment buildings would fix that. In fact, it would significantly increase density and reduce cost, in turn reducing commute times for many people.
Even an apartment can be built well enough that you don't have to worry about sharing walls with neighbors. My neighbor is regularly watching movies at THX reference volume, and so am I, and neither of us can hear each others' audio.
With land value as high as it is in LA, it's worth spending money on improving the quality of construction, so people can share walls with their neighbors without any of the negatives usually associated with it.
And a pony! Americans love ponies!!
It’s not uncommon to read a comment so detached from economic reality but this is today’s winner. In fact causing the problem it intends to solve.
People who like dense living spaces should visit some of the dense high rise areas in Manila. Enjoy the gridlock and queueing ten minutes for the elevator to your floor.
You’re assuming their kids don’t want the same things. My parents are off the “certain generation” and I am very happy with the zoning as it is. My peers share this mentality.
I lived in one of those hanging apartments depicted in the postcards, up there in Beachwood Canyon, for a period during the 80's and early 90's .. in my particular place, it was old and decrepit and run down, but the 'developer' had sauced up one of the upper levels sufficient to a working kids needs .. I will always remember the peril I felt, looking up at the slowly reclining detaining wall, earthquake memories borne in its cracks, and wondering why the heck someone would do this.
The answer is in the dreams that everyone had, in that house, over the decades. Those hills are a pretty haunted lot. Something about the tension of the Earth, in my opinion, that can be felt if you listen long enough ..
That sign doesn't seem like a very comfy home for people to live in, so no wonder it didn't do well as a housing development. That was a very bad design from an architect if they thought people were going to live there.
As someone who's visited, this is a confusing comment to me.
I think of that as being the entire point of the city. It's a deliberate contrast to places like NYC, Tokyo, London.
A place where you can have a big old lot, a store that's half empty, a car collection. Cause there's so much land kicking about. Too bad it became expensive anyway, I guess.