| What makes it historical? |
Now inseparable from the glitz and glamour of the film industry, the Hollywood sign was originally installed in 1923 to advertise Harry Chandler’s luxury housing development called Hollywoodland! Though only meant to last a year and a half, it cost the <>Los Angeles Times publisher and his business partners $21,000 (over $300K today) to install and came with a 4,000-bulb lighting display that flashed Holly-Wood-Land at night! All of this material was dragged up the side of Mount Lee and assembled by hand. No helicopters!
The mountain itself takes its name from Don Lee, who had bought 20 acres of land behind the sign in 1938 and installed the world’s highest elevation television transmission tower (for the time)! Two years later, it became the first station on the West Coast to transmit a live remote telecast!
Over the course of the Great Depression, Hollywoodland failed and the sign fell into disrepair. When the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce renovated it in 1949, they removed the last four letters and left the sign to say “Hollywood,” the area’s name since 1887. The second incarnation of the sign fell in the 60s as well, as the film industry and many of Hollywood’s residents migrated north to the San Fernando Valley and left it to rot. It wasn’t until 1978 that Playboy founder, Hugh Hefner, had a fundraising gala to set up a third, reinforced installation of the sign, which has stood on the mountainside, as emblematic as the Statue of Liberty and Eiffel Tower, ever since! |
