Like a movie star, the Hollywood sign doesn’t let anyone get too close. He’s always surrounded by security cameras and curious tourists looking for the perfect shot.
Also like the celebrities scattered across Los Angeles billboards, the gigantic white letters can be seen from various points of the city, such as driving along the 101 freeway, walking along the Walk of Fame or the countless trails in Griffith Park.
Therefore, nothing more natural than receiving a beautiful “retread” as it approaches its centenary, which will take place in 2023. In addition to commemorative events, there is still the possibility of the panel shining again, or rather, of being illuminated as it was in 1923, when it was raised to promote a luxury real estate development.
“The sign was last painted 10 years ago. There was rust forming, peeling paint, lots of dirt and dirt around the structures. And we need it spotless for next year,” said Jeff Zarrinnam, president of the Hollywood Sign Trust, a nonprofit group. non-profit organization that helps maintain and publicize the symbol of the city.
“We gave it a good clean and two coats of paint.”
The paint used is the same as that found in Sherwin Williams sponsor stores, called Emerald Rain Refresh Extra White, renamed “centennial white” for the occasion. About 400 gallons were used by the team of 10 workers last October, when green platforms could be seen in the distance, bobbing up and down the 13-metre-high letters.
“It makes me proud to do this work, it’s such a symbolic place, everyone knows it or wants to know it. Being here painting is a dream, a feeling difficult to explain”, said one of the works supervisors, Jesus Pelayo, as he got off the platform letter D”.
Not that the task was easy: “The heat was cruel last week, it went over 40 degrees”.
The sign is just below the top of Mount Lee, within Griffith Park, and visitors can only get close behind the letters and after a beautiful hike. (see trails below)🇧🇷
“It will be a year-round celebration. Plans are under development,” said Zarrinnam. “We are studying whether we can light it up again. There is a lot to be considered: whether it would be solar panels, whether it would be a daily thing or just for special events. We also have an environmental study in progress.”
For historian Leo Braudy of the University of Southern California, the sign is a “strange kind of icon”, unlike the Statue of Liberty or the presidential faces on Mount Rushmore, in that it does not represent anything but itself.
“It’s a perfect symbol of the modern celebrity who celebrates herself by spelling out her name for the world to see,” said Braudy. “As one of Marcel Duchamp’s ‘readymades’, ordinary objects that become works of art when installed in a museum, the sign derives its meaning from where it is installed and what people think of it, rather than what it intrinsically is. “
But, before Hollywood, it was Hollywoodland that the inhabitants of the new district of Los Angeles could see on the hill, illuminated by 4,000 light bulbs (detail: an employee lived in a hut next door to change the ones that burned out).
It was part of the marketing to sell the land at the foot of the mountain, in which Bela Lugosi (“Dracula”) and Humphrey Bogart (“Casablanca”) came to live a long time later.
The real estate office, the first house to be built, still exists today, as well as the stone pillars of a gate, at North Beachwood Drive and Westshire Drive.
Built to last 18 months, the panel remained, helping to consolidate the name of the region, named at the end of the 19th century by Daeida Wilcox, the wife of a contractor. The couple had bought a 120-acre ranch on the site, then a remote village hours from Los Angeles, and began selling land and developing the area with an eye on the real estate boom in Southern California with the arrival of the railroad lines.
Daeida called the property Hollywood, and the reason is disputed. She would have heard a suggestion from a traveler and been delighted with the religious reference (“holy”, in English, is sacred), or would have been influenced by a hotel of the same name in New Jersey.
Another possible inspiration is the toyon, a tree with red fruits known as the “California holly”, which still grows wild along trails and decorates mansions in the Hollywood Hills.
The Wilcox couple, religious and prohibitionist, like the Hollywoodland agents, didn’t want troublemakers on their properties. That is, actors and directors were not welcome. It was the beginning of the migration of studios from the East Coast to the West, animated with sunny locations all year round.
Very few studios, however, have settled in Hollywood.
An exception was Charles Chaplin’s Lone Star, a studio built in 1918 and the location for “Luzes da Ribalta”. Since 2000, it has been the headquarters of the Jim Henson Company, creator of the “Muppets” (Caco is at the top of the entrance on La Brea Street).
Hollywood, as synonymous with the film industry, also had help from other outsiders, mainly businessman Sid Grauman, who opened the first local cinema in 1922, the very sophisticated Grauman’s Egyptian Theater, followed by the Chinese Theater, on the same street four years later.
Stage of the region’s first film premiere, “Robin Hood” (1922), the Egyptian was purchased in 2020 by Netflix, which is currently restoring the space. It was Grauman who had the genius idea of bringing celebrities to premieres, turning them into major events reported by the press across the country.
The sign, on the other hand, as an indisputable double symbol of the neighborhood and cinema, would only come later, in the 1960s, with the winds of preservation and appreciation of the past and with the help of the pop art crowd, often influenced by the advertising market.
To get there, the panel went through hard times and was reborn several times. In the 1940s, the letter “h” was overturned by winds and for years the population lived with Ollywoodland. It was the first “edit” of the panel, which would later be illegally changed to other names.
The removal of the “land” came in 1949, when the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce agreed to restore it with the condition of reducing it.
In the 1970s, the wooden telephone poles that held up the panel were rotting with termites, and the letters kept rolling down the mountain. Restored in 1973, it was completely replaced in 1978, fixed by perforated steel beams four meters into the earth and with metal letters 1.5 meters smaller. The result is what you see today.
The memory of the oldest sign in Zarrinnam comes from this period. He remembers the tremendous disappointment of family friends who came from Europe when they saw the panel in a shaky state. Today, guardian of the panel, Zarrinnam makes a point of living in a house with a view of the letters.
“When it comes to the sign, two words always come to mind: hope and dreams,” he said. “It brings back movie memories and motivates people to do their best and achieve their dreams. In the end, that’s what America is all about, it’s the American dream.”
Walking to the sign
Untouchable, he only lets you get 100 feet away, on top of Mount Lee. Prepare a bottle of water, a hat and good hiking shoes. Here are some ways to get there:
tree of wisdom
Right at the left end of the mountain that bears the sign, you can see a solitary pine tree, known as the “tree of wisdom”, from afar. Survivor of a fire in 2007, it can be visited on the way to the sign. A half-destroyed wooden box holds notebooks with messages from visitors. The climb to the tree (1.2 km) is tough, but the view is a good excuse to take it slow. From the tree to the sign (another 1 km) it is relatively flat, with some ups and downs.
Trail: Wonder View Trailhead, at the end of Wonder View Drive. Distance: 4.4 km round trip. Parking: Free along Lake Hollywood Drive.
Griffith Observatory
Another symbol of Los Angeles is the Griffith Park observatory, whose parking lot holds a bust of James Dean (location of the knife fight in “Misguided Youth”). The trail is well signposted, but long and without shadows. It can be combined with the way back via the “wisdom tree”, just don’t forget where you left the car.
Trail: Charlie Turner Trailhead, at the end of the parking lot. Distance: 10 km round trip. Parking: At the observatory, free until noon, then metered parking at $4 per hour or $20 per day. Another option is to take the Vermont/Sunset subway bus to the observatory (DASH Observatory/Los Feliz line – USD 0.50).
Hollywood Hills Houses
It has the best frontal views of the sign. Follow the dirt trail to the end and turn left onto Mulholland Highway, riding the asphalt between Hollywood Hills homes. Turn left at the next intersection and continue until you come to a closed gate. To the left, half hidden, is the pedestrian door: you can open it. From here to the sign is 2 km. The gate is at the end of Deronda Drive, before it turns into Mulholland Highway. Another option is to take a taxi/Uber/Lyft to the gate, as there is no parking space.
Trail: Innsdale Trailhead, at the end of Canyon Lake Drive. Distance: 7 km round trip. Parking: Free along Canyon Lake Drive.
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