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Overview of Hollywood

Hollywood is a district in Los Angeles, California, U.S.A., situated west-northwest of Downtown. Due to its fame and cultural identity as the historical center of movie studios and stars, the word "Hollywood" is often used as a metonym for the American film and television industry. Today much of the movie industry has dispersed into surrounding areas such as Burbank and the Westside, but significant ancillary industries (such as editing, effects, props, post-production, and lighting companies) remain in Hollywood.

Many historic Hollywood theaters are used as venues and concert stages to premiere major theatrical releases, and host the Academy Awards. It is a popular destination for nightlife and tourism, and home to the Walk of Fame.

There is currently no official boundary of Hollywood (Los Angeles does not have official districts), but the
2002 secession movement and the current Neighborhood Council boundaries can serve as guides. There is a sign at the northeast corner of Fairfax Avenue and Melrose Avenue indicating that one is entering Hollywood. Generally, Hollywood's southern border follows Melrose Avenue from Vermont Avenue west to Fairfax Avenue. From there, the boundary continues north on Fairfax, wrapping east around the separate City of West Hollywood along Willoughby Avenue then wrapping around on La Brea Avenue and heads west along Fountain Avenue before turning north again on Laurel Canyon Boulevard into the Hollywood Hills. The eastern boundary follows Vermont Avenue north from Melrose past Hollywood Boulevard to Franklin Avenue. From there, the border travels west along Franklin to Western Avenue, and then north on Western into Griffith Park. Most of the hills between Laurel Canyon and Griffith Park are part of Hollywood. The commercial, cultural, and transportation center of Hollywood is the area where La Brea Avenue, Highland Avenue, Cahuenga Boulevard, and Vine Street intersect Hollywood Boulevard and Sunset Boulevard. The population of the district as of the 2000 census was 167,664 .

As a portion of the City of Los Angeles, Hollywood does not have its own municipal government, but does have an appointed official that serves as "honorary mayor" for ceremonial purposes only. Currently, the "mayor" is Johnny Grant.

History of Hollywood

In 1853, one adobe hut stood on the site that became Hollywood. By 1870, an agricultural community flourished in the area with thriving crops. In the 1880s, Harvey Henderson Wilcox of Kansas, who made a fortune in real estate even though he had lost the use of his legs due to typhoid fever, and his wife, Daeida, moved to Los Angeles from Topeka. In 1886, Wilcox bought 160 acres (0.6 km) of land in the countryside to the west of the city at the foothills and the Cahuenga Pass.

A locally popular etymology is that the name Hollywood traces to the ample stands of native Toyon, or "California Holly," that cover the hillsides with clusters of bright red berries each winter. But this and accounts of the name coming from imported English holly then growing in the area are not confirmed. There is some disagreement as to who was the first to name the place Hollywood. One account says that the name was coined by H.J. Whitley, the Father of Hollywood. He and his wife Gigi reportedly came up with the name in 1886 while on their honeymoon. Another account is that Mrs. Wilcox coined the name in 1883; while on a train she became acquainted with a wealthy lady who often spoke of her country home named after a settlement of Dutch immigrants from Zwolle called "Hollywood", and when she returned to Los Angeles she so named her country place.

By 1900, the community called Cahuenga also had a post office, a newspaper, a hotel and two markets, along with a population of 500 people. Los Angeles, with a population of 100,000 people at the time, lay seven miles (11 km) east through the citrus groves. A single-track streetcar line ran down the middle of Prospect Avenue from Los Angeles, but service was infrequent and the trip took two hours. The old citrus fruit packing house would be converted into a livery stable, improving transportation for the inhabitants of Hollywood.

The first section of the famous Hollywood Hotel, the first major hotel in Hollywood, was opened in 1902 by H.J. Whitley, eager to sell residential lots among the lemon ranches then lining the foothills. Flanking the west side of Highland Avenue, the structure fronted on Prospect Avenue. Still a dusty, unpaved road, it was regularly graded and graveled.

Hollywood was incorporated as a municipality in 1903. Among the town ordinances was one prohibiting the sale of liquor except by pharmacists and one outlawing the driving of cattle through the streets in herds of more than two hundred. In 1904, a new trolley car track running from Los Angeles to Hollywood up Prospect Avenue was opened. The system was called "the Hollywood boulevard." It cut travel time to and from Los Angeles drastically.

By 1910, because of an ongoing struggle to secure an adequate water supply, the townsmen voted for Hollywood to be annexed into the City of Los Angeles, as the water system of the growing city had opened the Los Angeles Aqueduct and was piping water down from the Owens River in the Owens Valley. Another reason for the vote was that Hollywood could have access to drainage through Los Angeles' sewer system.

With annexation, the name of Prospect Avenue was changed to Hollywood Boulevard and all the street numbers in the new district changed. For example, 100 Prospect Avenue, at Vermont Avenue, became 6400 Hollywood Boulevard; and 100 Cahuenga Boulevard, at Hollywood Boulevard, changed to 1700 Cahuenga Boulevard.

Hollywood and the motion picture industry

In early 1910, director D. W. Griffith was sent by the Biograph Company to the west coast with his acting troop consisting of actors Blanche Sweet, Lillian Gish, Mary Pickford, Lionel Barrymore, and others. They started filming on a vacant lot near Georgia Street in Downtown Los Angeles. The Company decided to explore new territories and traveled several miles north to a little village that was friendly and enjoyed the movie company filming there. This place was called "Hollywood". D. W. Griffith then filmed the first movie ever shot in Hollywood called In Old California, a Biograph melodrama about Latino/Mexican-occupied California in the 1800s. Biograph stayed there for months and made several films before returning to New York. After hearing about this wonderful place, in 1913 many movie-makers headed west. With this film, the movie industry was "born" in Hollywood which soon became the movie capital of the world.

Modern Hollywood

On January 22, 1947, the first commercial TV station west of the Mississippi River, KTLA, began operating in Hollywood. In December of that year, the first Hollywood movie production was made for TV, The Public Prosecutor. And in the 1950s, music recording studios and offices began moving into Hollywood. Other businesses, however, continued to migrate to different parts of the Los Angeles area, primarily to Burbank. Much of the movie industry remained in Hollywood, although the district's outward appearance changed.

In 1952, CBS built CBS Television City on the corner of Fairfax Avenue and Beverly Boulevard on the former site of Gilmore Stadium. CBS's expansion into the Fairfax District pushed the unofficial boundary of Hollywood further south than it had been. CBS's slogan for the shows taped there was "From Television City in Hollywood..."

During the early 50's the famous Hollywood Freeway was constructed from The Stack interchange in downtown Los Angeles, past the Hollywood Bowl, up through Cahuenga Pass and into the San Fernando Valley. In the early days, streetcars ran up through the pass, on rails running along the central reservation of the highway.

The famous Capitol Records building on Vine Street just north of Hollywood Boulevard was built in 1956. It is a recording studio not open to the public, but its unique circular design looks like a stack of old 45rpm vinyl records.

The now derelict lot at the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Serrano Avenue was once the site of the illustrious Hollywood Professional School whose alumni reads like a Hollywood who's who of household "names".

The Hollywood Walk of Fame was created in 1958 and the first star was placed in 1960 as a tribute to artists working in the entertainment industry. Honorees receive a star based on career and lifetime achievements in motion pictures, live theatre, radio, television, and/or music, as well as their charitable and civic contributions.

In 1985, the Hollywood Boulevard commercial and entertainment district was officially listed in the National Register of Historic Places protecting important buildings and ensuring that the significance of Hollywood's past would always be a part of its future.

In June 1999, the long-awaited Hollywood extension of the Los Angeles County Metro Rail Red Line subway opened, running from Downtown Los Angeles to the Valley, with stops along Hollywood Boulevard at Western Avenue, Vine Street and Highland Avenue.

The Kodak Theatre, which opened in 2001 on Hollywood Boulevard at Highland Avenue, where the historic Hollywood Hotel once stood, has become the new home of the Oscars.

While motion picture production still occurs within the Hollywood district, most major studios are actually located elsewhere in the Los Angeles region. Paramount Studios is the only major studio still physically located within Hollywood. Other studios in the district include the aforementioned Jim Henson (formerly Chaplin) Studios, Sunset Gower Studios, and Raleigh Studios.

While Hollywood and the adjacent neighborhood of Los Feliz served as the initial homes for all of the early television stations in the Los Angeles market, most have now relocated to other locations within the metropolitan area. KNBC began this exodus in 1962 when it moved to from the former NBC Radio City Studios located at the northeast corner of Sunset Boulevard and Vine Street to NBC Studios in Burbank. KTTV pulled up stakes in 1996 from its former home at Metromedia Square in the 5700 block of Sunset Boulevard to relocate to the 20th Century Fox lot in Century City. KABC-TV moved from its original location at ABC Television Center (now branded The Prospect Studios) just east of Hollywood to Glendale in 2000, though the Los Angeles bureau of ABC News still resides at Prospect. After being purchased by 20th Century Fox in 2001, KCOP left its former home in the 900 block of North La Brea Avenue to join KTTV on the Fox lot. The CBS Corporation-owned duopoly of KCBS-TV and KCAL-TV is planning a move in the near future from its longtime home at CBS Columbia Square in the 6100 block of Sunset Boulevard to a new facility currently under construction at CBS Studio Center in Studio City. Once KCBS-TV and KCAL-TV make the exit to Studio City, KTLA, located in the 5800 block of Sunset Boulevard, and KCET, in the 4400 block of Sunset Boulevard, will be the last television stations with Hollywood addresses.

Additionally it has once served as the home of nearly every radio station in Los Angeles, all of which have later moved into other communities. KNX was the last station to broadcast from Hollywood when it left CBS Columbia Square for a studio in the Miracle Mile in 2005.

In 2002, a number of Hollywood citizens began a campaign for the district to secede from Los Angeles and become, as it had been a century earlier, its own incorporated municipality. Secession supporters argued that the needs of their community were being ignored by the leaders of Los Angeles. In June of that year, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors placed secession referendums for both Hollywood and the Valley on the ballots for a "citywide election." To pass, they required the approval of a majority of voters in the proposed new municipality as well as a majority of voters in all of Los Angeles. In the November election, both referendums failed by wide margins in the citywide vote.

Hollywood Hills - Population

Hollywood Hills - Household

Hollywood Hills - Income

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This web site is a professional courtesy offered by Henry Plascencia, a Realtor with Prudential California Realty.
HenryPlascencia.com | HotLAlistings.com | henry@hotlalistings.com
1714 Hillhurst Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
office: 323.671.1200 | fax: 323.395.5841 | direct: 323.671.1275 | mobile: 310.995.6273 |

As part of the Prudential California Realty team, I am dedicated to helping you with all of your real estate needs. With many services all under one roof, Prudential California Realty offers the convenience of "one-stop" shopping. As an industry leader, Prudential California Realty is committed to offering our clients the latest innovations in marketing and technology. This website demonstrates that with its extensive list of features including thousands of properties, searchable open houses, virtual tours, email updates, financial calculators, selling tips, and so much more. If you are looking for your dream home or thinking of selling your current residence, contact me for service that is second to none!

Sellers: I sell homes through Exposure, Presentation and Credibility. These are the three hallmarks of his impressive record of quick and consistently high sales prices.
Exposure: A marketing blitz via the internet, print publications and open houses will ensure that every buyer who could possibly be interested in your property will know about it all at the same time. This creates greater demand and a sense of urgency within the buyer pool, producing an environment for multiple offers and greater negotiating leverage for the Seller.
Presentation: Great care will be taken to make sure that your home looks it's best, in print, on the internet and in person. A positive, strong emotional response is needed to sell a home at it's highest value.
Credibility: Henry's long history of success in selling properties will contribute to the confidence the local real estate community and buyer pool will have in the value of your property. This confidence will lead to greater exposure, a higher level of trust and inevitably a high sales price.

Buyers: You can automatically receive personalized MLS listings by e-mail. Early each morning I will search the local MLS and find the homes that match your criteria and notify you immediately with the latest listing information!! Simply click on the Dream Home Finder link and fill in the requested information.

Specializing in the purchase and sale of single-family residences , condominiums & Residential Income property within the neighborhoods of Los Angeles, Los Feliz, Silver Lake, Mt. Washington, Eagle Rock, Glassell Park, Hollywood Hills, Atwater Village & Highland Park. I keep current of all transactions in these areas, and I'm also very knowledgeable with the local schools.