Hollywood and Vine
Encyclopedia
Hollywood and Vine, the intersection of Hollywood Boulevard
Hollywood Boulevard
-Revitalization:In recent years successful efforts have been made at cleaning up Hollywood Blvd., as the street had gained a reputation for crime and seediness. Central to these efforts was the construction of the Hollywood and Highland shopping center and adjacent Kodak Theatre in 2001...

 and Vine Street
Vine Street
Vine is a street in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California that runs north-south from Melrose Avenue up past Hollywood Boulevard. The intersection of Hollywood and Vine was once a symbol of Hollywood itself...

 in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California
Hollywood, Los Angeles, California
Hollywood is a famous district in Los Angeles, California, United States situated west-northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Due to its fame and cultural identity as the historical center of movie studios and movie stars, the word Hollywood is often used as a metonym of American cinema...

, became famous in the 1920s for its concentration of radio and movie-related businesses. The Hollywood Walk of Fame
Hollywood Walk of Fame
The Hollywood Walk of Fame consists of more than 2,400 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along fifteen blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, California...

 is centered on the intersection.

Today, not many production facilities are located in the immediate area. One of the few remaining is the Capitol Records Tower
Capitol Records Building
The Capitol Records Building, also known as the Capitol Records Tower, Hollywood Boulevard Commercial and Entertainment District, located in Hollywood, Los Angeles is a thirteen story tower designed by Welton Becket – and one of the city's landmarks...

 to the north of the intersection.

The subway station of the same name
Hollywood/Vine (LACMTA Station)
Hollywood/Vine is a subway station on the Red Line of the Los Angeles Metro in Hollywood, Los Angeles.-Location:As the name implies, Hollywood/Vine station lies below the intersection of Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street. The central station of the three subway stops in Hollywood, it is within...

 for the Metro Red Line
LACMTA Red Line
The Red Line is a subway line running between Downtown Los Angeles via the districts of Hollywood and Mid-Wilshire to North Hollywood within Los Angeles where it connects with the Metroliner Orange line service for stations to the Warner Center in Woodland Hills.The red line, which is one of five...

 is located directly below the intersection, but the entrance/exit to the station is located one block east at Hollywood and Argyle Avenue. The intersection is located in ZIP code
ZIP Code
ZIP codes are a system of postal codes used by the United States Postal Service since 1963. The term ZIP, an acronym for Zone Improvement Plan, is properly written in capital letters and was chosen to suggest that the mail travels more efficiently, and therefore more quickly, when senders use the...

 90028.

History

The area was a lemon
Lemon
The lemon is both a small evergreen tree native to Asia, and the tree's ellipsoidal yellow fruit. The fruit is used for culinary and non-culinary purposes throughout the world – primarily for its juice, though the pulp and rind are also used, mainly in cooking and baking...

 grove until 1903, when Daeida Beveridge
Daeida Wilcox Beveridge
Daeida Hartell Wilcox Beveridge Along with her first husband, the Kansas prohibitionist Harvey Wilcox, co-developed and named, in 1887, the Los Angeles, California, suburb of Hollywood.-Biography:...

 allowed one corner of the dirt intersection on her property to be used for the building of the Hollywood Memorial Church for the local German Methodist population.

The historical marker plaque placed at the site by The Broadway-Hollywood Department Store and the Board of Supervisors of the County of Los Angeles reads:
Hollywood was given name by pioneers Mr. and Mrs. Horace H. Wilcox. They subdivided their ranch in 1887 and called two dirt cross-roads Prospect Avenue and Weyse Avenue. Prospect Avenue, the main artery, was renamed Hollywood Boulevard and Weyse Avenue became Vine Street. This was the origin of "Hollywood and Vine."


The streets were renamed in 1910, when the town of Hollywood was annexed by the City of Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

.

Beginning in the 1920s, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the area began to see an influx of money and influence as movie and music businesses began to move in, turning the local farms and orchards into movie backlot
Backlot
A backlot is an area behind or adjoining a movie studio, containing permanent exterior buildings for outdoor scenes in filmmaking or television productions, or space for temporary set construction....

s. Hollywood and Vine was the second busiest intersection in the area, after Wilshire Boulevard
Wilshire Boulevard
Wilshire Boulevard is one of the principal east-west arterial roads in Los Angeles, California, United States. It was named for Henry Gaylord Wilshire , an Ohio native who made and lost fortunes in real estate, farming, and gold mining. Henry Wilshire initiated what was to become Wilshire...

 and Western Avenue
Western Avenue (Los Angeles)
Western Avenue is a major four lane street slightly west of Downtown Los Angeles and the center portion of Los Angeles County. Besides Sepulveda Boulevard, it is one of the longest north/south streets in Los Angeles...

.

In the 1930s radio programs such as KFWB and the CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...

 Lux Radio Theater
Lux Radio Theater
Lux Radio Theater, a long-run classic radio anthology series, was broadcast on the NBC Blue Network ; CBS and NBC . Initially, the series adapted Broadway plays during its first two seasons before it began adapting films. These hour-long radio programs were performed live before studio audiences...

 spoke of "broadcasting live from Hollywood and Vine," and newspaper columnists Hedda Hopper
Hedda Hopper
Hedda Hopper was an American actress and gossip columnist, whose long-running feud with friend turned arch-rival Louella Parsons became at least as notorious as many of Hopper's columns.-Early life:...

 and Jimmie Fidler regularly touted the intersection's mystique.

In 1958, the intersection became the central point of the newly-installed Hollywood Walk of Fame
Hollywood Walk of Fame
The Hollywood Walk of Fame consists of more than 2,400 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along fifteen blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, California...

. Later Neil Armstrong
Neil Armstrong
Neil Alden Armstrong is an American former astronaut, test pilot, aerospace engineer, university professor, United States Naval Aviator, and the first person to set foot upon the Moon....

, Buzz Aldrin
Buzz Aldrin
Buzz Aldrin is an American mechanical engineer, retired United States Air Force pilot and astronaut who was the Lunar Module pilot on Apollo 11, the first manned lunar landing in history...

 and Michael Collins
Michael Collins (astronaut)
Michael Collins is a former American astronaut and test pilot. Selected as part of the third group of fourteen astronauts in 1963, he flew in space twice. His first spaceflight was Gemini 10, in which he and command pilot John Young performed two rendezvous with different spacecraft and Collins...

, the astronauts of the first lunar landing mission Apollo 11
Apollo 11
In early 1969, Bill Anders accepted a job with the National Space Council effective in August 1969 and announced his retirement as an astronaut. At that point Ken Mattingly was moved from the support crew into parallel training with Anders as backup Command Module Pilot in case Apollo 11 was...

, were awarded television stars for coverage of the mission, and given the places of honor at the exact corners of Hollywood and Vine.

By the 1960s, however, many studios and broadcasters had moved onto more upscale areas, and the area fell into disrepair and disrepute, with many abandoned stores and offices, and the streets themselves, claimed by squatters
Squatting
Squatting consists of occupying an abandoned or unoccupied space or building, usually residential, that the squatter does not own, rent or otherwise have permission to use....

 and panhandlers
Begging
Begging is to entreat earnestly, implore, or supplicate. It often occurs for the purpose of securing a material benefit, generally for a gift, donation or charitable donation...

. It took several decades for redevelopment to take hold, and visitors looking for Hollywood dreams were often taken aback by the area's contrast with shinier tourist meccas.

The Hollywood/Vine subway station opened in 1999, and led to more sustained and serious redevelopment in the area. On May 29, 2003, Hollywood and Vine was named "Bob Hope Square" to commemorate Hope
Bob Hope
Bob Hope, KBE, KCSG, KSS was a British-born American comedian and actor who appeared in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in radio, television and movies. He was also noted for his work with the US Armed Forces and his numerous USO shows entertaining American military personnel...

's 100th birthday.

In urban folklore, many of the local buildings are considered to be part of "Haunted Hollywood", home to the ghosts of celebrities (and less stellar residents) of Hollywood's legendary past. The intersection has been mentioned or alluded to in dozens of songs, films, video games, music videos and other popular media, often as a symbol of Hollywood's lure as a destination for dreamers, or for its decadence and disappointments.

Historic buildings

The first "high-rise" building at Hollywood and Vine was the 12-story Taft Building, built in 1923 on the southeast corner on the site of the old Memorial Church. It was built for A.Z. Taft Jr. by architects Walker & Eisen
Walker & Eisen
Walker & Eisen was an architectural partnership of architects Albert R. Walker and Percy A. Eisen in Los Angeles, California. Some of their notable buildings include the Fine Arts Building, James Oviatt Building, The Hotel Normandie , The Platt Building and the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. They are...

, in the Renaissance Revival
Neo-Renaissance
Renaissance Revival is an all-encompassing designation that covers many 19th century architectural revival styles which were neither Grecian nor Gothic but which instead drew inspiration from a wide range of classicizing Italian modes...

 style. "In Hollywood's golden age, all the studios had offices there," said Hollywood Chamber of Commerce President Leron Gubler, including Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...

 and Will Rogers
Will Rogers
William "Will" Penn Adair Rogers was an American cowboy, comedian, humorist, social commentator, vaudeville performer, film actor, and one of the world's best-known celebrities in the 1920s and 1930s....

. From 1935 to 1945 it was home to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is a professional honorary organization dedicated to the advancement of the arts and sciences of motion pictures...

 offices.
On the northwest corner, the Laemmle Building was built in the International Style
International style (architecture)
The International style is a major architectural style that emerged in the 1920s and 1930s, the formative decades of Modern architecture. The term originated from the name of a book by Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson, The International Style...

 in 1932 by architect Richard Neutra
Richard Neutra
Richard Joseph Neutra is considered one of modernism's most important architects.- Biography :Neutra was born in Leopoldstadt, the 2nd district of Vienna, Austria Hungary, on April 8, 1892. He was born into both-Jewish wealthy family...

 for Carl Laemmle
Carl Laemmle
Carl Laemmle , born in Laupheim, Württemberg, Germany, was a pioneer in American film making and a founder of one of the original major Hollywood movie studios - Universal...

, of Universal Studios
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....

 fame. Unfortunately, the original drawing depicting the design that Neutra intended was not built because of the 1929 stock market crash. It was significantly altered starting in 1940, and retained few of its original features. The building was gutted by fire in April 2008, and razed in October 2008.
To the west of the Laemmle Building is another famous International Style building, by Neutra's friend and rival Rudolf Schindler
Rudolf Schindler
Rudolph Michael Schindler Rudolph Michael Schindler Rudolph Michael Schindler (born Rudolf Michael Schindler (1887 Vienna - 1953 Los Angeles) was an American, born in Austria, architect whose most important works were built in or near Los Angeles during the early to mid-twentieth century....

. The building was originally known for Sardi's Diner, and is now home to the Cave Theater.

To the north of the Laemmle Building is a Spanish Colonial style building housing the Avalon Hollywood
Avalon Hollywood
Avalon is a historic night club and music venue in Hollywood, California, located near the intersection of Hollywood and Vine, at 1735 N. Vine Street...

, opened on January 24, 1927, as the Hollywood Playhouse and designed by the architectural firm of H. L. Gogerty and Carl Jules Weyl
Carl Jules Weyl
Carl Jules Weyl was a German art director. He won an Academy Award in the category Best Art Direction for the film The Adventures of Robin Hood...

. The building's name has changed many times over the 20th century, but was known as the Hollywood Palace for many years before its most recent renaming.

On the northeast corner of Hollywood and Vine is the Equitable Building, a Gothic Deco commercial tower built in 1929 on the northeast corner, designed by Aleck Curlett. Next to it is the famous Art Deco
Art Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...

 movie house, the Pantages Theatre
Pantages Theatre (Hollywood)
The Pantages Theatre, formerly known as RKO Pantages Theatre, is located at Hollywood and Vine , Hollywood, California, USA. Designed by architect B. Marcus Priteca, it was the last theater built by the vaudeville impresario Alexander Pantages...

, built in 1930 by B. Marcus Priteca—the first of its kind in the United States. The Academy Award
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...

 ceremonies were held at the Pantages from 1949 to 1959.

On the southwest corner, the B.H. Dyas building was built in 1927 by architect Frederick Rice Dorn. The B.H Dyas Specialty Emporium was a victim of the depression. From 1931 to 1982 it housed The Broadway-Hollywood department store
Department store
A department store is a retail establishment which satisfies a wide range of the consumer's personal and residential durable goods product needs; and at the same time offering the consumer a choice of multiple merchandise lines, at variable price points, in all product categories...

. The famous sign is a historical landmark and remains. In 2007, the Broadway Hollywood building underwent extensive reconstruction and has opened as a luxury class apartment building. The building has an art deco style annex just to the west of it built in the 1930s. (1943). In 1927, while researching The Skyscraper for DeMille Studios, Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand was a Russian-American novelist, philosopher, playwright, and screenwriter. She is known for her two best-selling novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged and for developing a philosophical system she called Objectivism....

 visited the building and, while waiting for her contact to arrive, went to the nearby Hollywood Branch Library, where she was reunited with Frank O'Connor, whom she had lost track of 6 months earlier when DeMille's The King of Kings finished shooting; Rand and O'Connor then began dating, were married in 1929 until his death in 1979.

Just to the south on Vine was the fabled Hollywood Plaza Hotel, built in 1924 and home to silent film
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...

 star Clara Bow
Clara Bow
Clara Gordon Bow was an American actress who rose to stardom in the silent film era of the 1920s. It was her appearance as a spunky shopgirl in the film It that brought her global fame and the nickname "The It Girl." Bow came to personify the roaring twenties and is described as its leading sex...

's "It Cafe". Across the street, the Hollywood Brown Derby
Brown Derby
The Brown Derby was the name of a chain of restaurants in Los Angeles, California. The first and most famous of these was shaped like a men's derby hat, an iconic image that became synonymous with the Golden Age of Hollywood....

 restaurant, the second in the chain, opened in 1929 in a Spanish Colonial Revival building designed for Cecil B. DeMille
Cecil B. DeMille
Cecil Blount DeMille was an American film director and Academy Award-winning film producer in both silent and sound films. He was renowned for the flamboyance and showmanship of his movies...

; it was demolished in 1994, leaving only a part of the Derby facade, which itself was threatened with demolition as of April 2006. Farther south on Vine were the original Lasky
Famous Players-Lasky
Famous Players-Lasky Corporation was an American motion picture and distribution company created on July 19, 1916 from the merger of Adolph Zukor's Famous Players Film Company -- originally formed by Zukor as Famous Players in Famous Plays -- and Jesse L...

-Paramount Studios
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...

, later NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

's West coast studios; and ABC's
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

 first West coast studios.

Redevelopment and urbanization

A number of high profile projects are attempting to restore the lost luster of the area. As of May 2007, major renovations announced by the Los Angeles city council, have begun construction on the famous intersection, developments expected to cost upwards of $600-million,. The new projects call for a 305-room W Hotel
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide
Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide, Inc. is a hospitality ownership and management organization, headquartered in White Plains, New York. One of the world's largest hotel companies, it owns, operates, franchises and manages hotels, resorts, spas, residences, and vacation ownership properties...

 tower with 143 adjoining condominiums. Also part of the plan for the southeast corner of the intersection, 375 luxury apartments, restaurants, a nightclub, stores and a spa, as well as retail renovations of the Pantages Theater, similar to the Hollywood and Highland
Hollywood and Highland
The Hollywood & Highland Center is a shopping mall and entertainment complex at Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue in the Hollywood district in Los Angeles. The center also includes Grauman's Chinese Theatre and the Kodak Theatre, home to the Academy Awards. The historic site was once the...

 Center a mile down the Boulevard. Expected completion date is November 2009.

Two other large projects are Palisades Development Group's $50-million conversion of the former Equitable office building to condominiums and Kor Group's $70-million conversion of the former Broadway department store, also into condos.

Basque Nightclub fire

On April 30, 2008, a large fire destroyed the Basque
Basque Country (autonomous community)
The Basque Country is an autonomous community of northern Spain. It includes the Basque provinces of Álava, Biscay and Gipuzkoa, also called Historical Territories....

Nightclub at Hollywood and Vine. It required the calling of 23 fire engines. This destroyed the historic Laemmle building.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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