Perhaps the most famous city in California isn't a city at all anymore. Hollywood was annexed to Los Angeles in 1910 because of a lack of water. The movie business arrived in town the very next year. But when did Hollywood Boulevard arrive?
Greg Williams is the author of "The Story of Hollywood: An Illustrated History." He says, "Hollywood Boulevard was originally called Prospect Avenue, and you still have the name Prospect Avenue; when you go east of Vermont, you can see there's Prospect. And that was what it was called."
In the early days, Prospect Avenue was a classy street of fancy residences – Queen Annes, Victorians, even a few Mission Revival style homes.
Williams says, "It was sort of after Hollywood was a city. They kind of said, 'since we're the city of Hollywood, let's have the main street called Hollywood Boulevard.'"
Those homes were replaced by other fancy palaces – movie palaces like the Egyptian, the El Capitan, and Grauman's Chinese Theatre.
(Airdate for this story: 7/29/07)
Comments (1)
While reading about Hollywood Blvd, I was recalling when my friend Richard and I used to travel to Hollywood every Saturday morning. We would catch the radio shows, like "Smilin' Ed McConnel and the Buster Brown Gang". We would listen to records at Walich's Music City, have lunch at the original Norm's Restaurant, and then go up to the "Hitching Post" Theatre to watch our favorite cowboy stars. We had to check in our cap pistols and holsters at the box office in order to buy a ticket. The Hitching Post was across from the Pantages. Those were the days.
Posted by Truculent Turtle | on August 2, 2007 10:05 AM