Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Hollywood Sign

Episode Date: September 8, 2022

Located in the hills above the Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, is one of the most iconic signs in the world.  The sign consists of just nine letters, made out of steel and painted white. Each letter stands 45 feet tall, and together they represent the entire motion picture industry.  Yet, this historic sign was never intended to become an icon or even represent where it is located.  Learn more about the Hollywood sign and the area known as Hollywood on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Subscribe to the podcast!  https://link.chtbl.com/EverythingEverywhere?sid=ShowNotes -------------------------------- Executive Producer: Darcy Adams Associate Producers: Peter Bennett & Thor Thomsen   Become a supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/everythingeverywhere Update your podcast app at newpodcastapps.com Search Past Episodes at fathom.fm Discord Server: https://discord.gg/UkRUJFh Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everythingeverywhere/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EverythingEverywhere Twitter: https://twitter.com/everywheretrip Website: https://everything-everywhere.com/everything-everywhere-daily-podcast/ Everything Everywhere is an Airwave Media podcast." or "Everything Everywhere is part of the Airwave Media podcast network Please contact [e-mail] to advertise on Everything Everywhere. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Located in the hills above the Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, is one of the most iconic signs in the world. The sign consists of just nine letters, made out of steel and painted white. Each letter stands 45 feet tall, and together they represent the entire motion picture industry. Yet, this historic sign was never intended to become an icon, or even represent where it was located. Learn more about the Hollywood sign, and the area known as Hollywood, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day into night.

And how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the ThruLine podcast from NPR. The very word Hollywood has become synonymous with motion pitchers. If you make it big in Hollywood, you aren't referring to. getting a well-paying job in a particular neighborhood of Los Angeles, you're probably referring to make it in movies. This episode is not about the motion picture industry, at least not directly. In past episodes, I've discussed how and why this industry wound up in this particular place. And just to summarize it, Hollywood was about as far away as you could get from Thomas Edison

and his attempts to enforce his patents on motion pictures. And it was also close to Mexico, if early filmmakers needed to make a run for the border. And of course, there was really nice weather. The history of the area, which is known as Hollywood, for the purposes of this episode, dates back to the 19th century. Los Angeles barely existed as a city in the 19th century. Most of the land, which is today one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world, was nothing more than agricultural land. The beginning of Hollywood as a residential area began with a Canadian businessman, Hobard Johnston Whitley, who migrated to California in 1893. He purchased a 480-acre ranch from one Eli Hurd. Whitley envisioned turning the ranch into a suburb of Los Angeles, which at the time only

had a population of about 50,000 people. Prior to Whitley, the area now known as Hollywood was rural with a population of about 18 people. The name Hollywood came from a wound by the name of Daida Wilcox. She and her husband also had a ranch in the area that they purchased in 1887. She was originally from Hicksville, Ohio, and in her travels she came across someone with a farm in Illinois that was named Hollywood, which she liked. When she and her husband purchased the ranch, she named it Hollywood. She later said, quote, I chose the name Hollywood simply because it sounds nice and because I'm superstitious and Holly brings good luck, end quote.

So the name Hollywood doesn't mean anything. It was a totally arbitrary name. Just as an aside, Daida and her now second husband began to divide their ranch into plots of houses around the same time as Hobard Whitley. She envisioned Hollywood becoming a utopian, Christian community free of gambling, alcohol, and prostitution. And on that score, she failed miserably. The area now known as Hollywood began growing alongside its larger neighbor, Los Angeles. By 1900, Los Angeles had a population of about 100,000, and Hollywood now had its own

newspaper, churches, and schools. In 1903, by a vote of 88 to 77, the citizens of Hollywood decided to incorporate into a formal city. A few months later, they also decided to ban all alcohol sales, at least temporarily, making Dieta Wilcox's dream come true. By 1910, Hollywood decided to merge with the greater city of Los Angeles to get access to water and sewer services, and by this time, Los Angeles had now grown to a population of 300,000. Hollywood, however, was still sparsely populated, and plenty of land was available, making it attractive to new motion picture studios who could set up large lots necessary for production. As the motion picture industry exploded, there was more demand for housing for all

the workers who were part of the business. In 1923, the real estate development company of Woodruff and Shouts hatched an idea for a new residential subdivision called Hollywood Land. Hollywood Land would be in the Hollywood Hills, overlooking Hollywood, which is situated to the south. The Hollywood Land development would be Spanish-style homes with all the modern amenities, including running water, gas, and electricity. One of the promotional pieces for the Hollywood Land project read, quote, Where will you live when the second million has come to Los Angeles? Will your family enjoy a delightful home in the clean, pure mountain air of Hollywood land, with its wonderful climate, broad open spaces, and plenty of elbow room?

Or will you live in a dwelling in the flat uninteresting houses in a row section of the city? Your family's freedom hampered by this maelstorm of human existence. End quote. One of the major investors in the project was the publisher of the Los Angeles Times, Harry Chandler. He thought it would be a great promotional idea to create a giant sign for the development that was placed on a hill just above where the development was. It would simply spell out Hollywood land in giant letters large enough to be seen throughout all of Los Angeles. They commissioned the Crescent Sign Company to erect 13 large letters

spelling out Hollywood land on the side of the mountain. The cost of the sign in 1923 was $21,000. Each letter of the sign was approximately 30 feet wide and 50 feet high supported by telephone poles. When the sign was erected, it was believed to have been the largest sign in the world at that time. What most people don't know is that the original sign actually had 3,700 light bulbs embedded in it. The lights would blink at night, illuminating each part of the sign in succession. Hollywood Land. And just as a side note, the Hollywood Land neighborhood is still there. It's just below the sign in the hills, and they even have a homeowners association.

The sign wasn't a big deal when it was erected, and there were no contemporary accounts of its construction. It was literally just a billboard for a real estate company, so it wasn't considered worthy of attention. The sign was supposed to only be temporary, and it was to be taken down after 18 months. Over time, however, the meaning of the sign began to change. In 1924, a group of businessmen placed a 30-foot white dot underneath the sign. The significance of the white dot was due to maps produced by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce back in the 1920s. On their maps, cities would be represented by black, gray, or white dots representing the

business climate. This was part of a larger campaign to keep Los Angeles a clean and crime-free community. The dot wasn't there very long, although there are photos of it. But what it did was shift the meaning of the sign. The word Hollywood land, by itself, was devoid of context and meaning. And if you didn't know about the real estate development, you would have had no idea what it meant. With the economic and cultural importance of the motion picture industry increasing, the sign came to represent the Hollywood community, as well as the abstract idea of Hollywood.

The greater meaning of the sign was really hammered home with the sad case of Peg and Whistle. Peg Entwistle was a Welsh actress who moved to Hollywood to find success in motion pitchers. After a series of failures, on September 16, 1932, she climbed a ladder on the back of the letter H and jumped to her death. The newspapers called her the Hollywood Sign Girl. While the sign wasn't taken down, it also wasn't given any upkeep. It was never designed to be a permanent structure. In 1933, the Hollywood Land Syndicate was dissolved, and the land that the sign was on was granted to the M.H. Sherman Company.

The company found the sign to be more of a burden than an asset, so they made the decision to just cease maintenance. In 1936, the second O in the sign collapsed, and in 1939, the company did spend $2.00. $2,177 to repair the sign. However, in 1944, the letter H was destroyed in a storm. In 1945, the sign and the land it was on were sold to the city of Los Angeles for the token amount of $1.

But for almost six years, the sign simply read, Hollywood land because of the missing H. By 1949, there were demands that the sign be taken down because it was becoming an eyesore. It was at this point that the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce stepped in. They offered to repair the sign under the condition that the last four letters, L-A-N-D, be removed, as the sign was now representing the community of Hollywood, not just a real estate development anymore. So in September of 1949, the Hollywood Land sign became the Hollywood sign.

The Hollywood sign became entrenched as the iconic symbol of Hollywood throughout the 50s and 60s. However, by the early 1970s, the sign was once again in a dilapidated state. In fact, it was now far worse than it was in the 1940s. The first O had broken in half to look like a lowercase U, and the third O had completely collapsed. It now read, Hollywood. In 1973, the sign was designated as a historic cultural monument by the Cultural Heritage Board of the City of Los Angeles. But that fact in and of itself didn't do anything to fix the sign. There was a series of fundraising events in 1973 to restore the sign, and they did manage to raise the $15,000.

necessary. The sign was fixed, but it was only a short-term solution. The fact remained that the sign was only intended to be up for 18 months, and it had now been up for 50 years. And this point was hammered home on February 10, 1978, when a windstorm damaged almost every letter on the sign. A structural analysis of the sign after the storm found that the telephone poles, which were originally used to support the sign, had become rotted and infested with termites. It became clear to everyone that the sign didn't just need to be repaired, it needed to be completely replaced. The Save the Sign Committee was formed to raise a quarter million dollars needed to replace the sign with a more permanent structure. The leader of the campaign was the publisher of Playboy

magazine, Hugh Heffner. The goal was to get all nine letters of the sign sponsored. In short order, they all were. Some were sponsored by celebrities like Alice Cooper, Andy Williams, and Gene Autry, and other letters were sponsored by companies like Warner Bros. Records. On August 8th, 1978, the old sign was destroyed and construction began on the new sign, which was designed to look just like the old sign. The new sign had a foundation of 194 tons of concrete, and embedded in the concrete were 20 vertical steel support beams. The letters themselves are made out of corrugated, baked, enamel sheet metal panels. The new sign was unveiled in a televised ceremony on November 11, 1978. Today, the sign is a joint project of three different groups,

the city of Los Angeles, which owns the land that the sign sits on, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, which owns the licensing rights to the image of the sign, and the Hollywood Sign Trust, which does repairs and maintenance on the sign. The sign was repainted in 1993, 2003, and 2013, with paint donated for the project each time. The biggest investments in the sign have been in the area of security. If you've seen a movie where someone is sitting up at the sign looking out over the city, Well, you can't do that. Because the Hollywood sign is the signature landmark for the city of Los Angeles,

many people try to walk up to the sign. The problem was that the areas closest to the sign were residential neighborhoods that couldn't handle the traffic. Also, the trails going to the sign really aren't very safe. To discourage vandalism, the entire sign is now enclosed in fencing, and there's a 24-7 security system in place to catch trespassers. Nonetheless, over the years, pranksters have changed the sign to say something else. else. This has included Caltech, Hollywood, Hollywood, Go Navy, and others. Likewise, the sign

has been copied around the world. The Dollywood amusement park was based on Dolly Parton envisioning the sign with a D at the beginning instead of an age. There is a large sign over Brassau Romania, with the word Brassoff overlooking the city. Likewise, a large Marseilles sign was erected over the town of Marseille, France. There's even a small Hollywood sign over the tiny village of Hollywood in County Wicklow, Ireland. There are literally dozens of city signs inspired by the Hollywood sign all over the world. Of all the great iconic landmarks around the world,

the Hollywood sign might be the oddest of them all, because it was never intended to be a landmark, let alone a permanent structure. It was just supposed to sell houses. A hundred years later, perhaps the fact that it wasn't supposed to be a landmark is the thing that makes the Hollywood sign the perfect landmark for Hollywood.

Everything Everywhere Daily is an Airwave Media podcast. The executive producer is Darcy Adams. The associate producers are Thorne Thompson and Peter Bennett. Today's review comes from listener Seth Louvierre over at CastBox. He writes, Wow, what an amazing podcast. I consider myself someone who enjoys learning, and this show definitely teaches me new and interesting things every day.

I have finally caught up to the newest episode and joined the Completionist Club. As a Cajun myself, my favorite episodes are the one on the Acadian Expulsion and Marty Gras. I'm happy that you got the full experience, Gary. Lesie le Bonne Troulete. Thank you, Seth. I did enjoy my occasion Marty Gras experience in Lafayette, and I would love to go back and experience it again someday.

As for Louisiana-themed episodes, I have a few on the list. One would be former Governor Huey Long, who was a fascinating character, and another would be on the city of New Orleans itself, an incredible amount of history, located in one of the worst geologic places in North America to put a city. Also, you might want to know that as a Louisiana member of the Completionist Club. We have vignets in the morning and crawfish every Friday.

Remember, if you leave a review or send me a boostogram, you two can have it read on the show. Hoorah for Hollywood, that's gooey-bally-hooly Hollywood, where any office boy or young mechanic can be a panic with just a good-looking pan. And any shop girl can be a top girl if she pieces the timely wood. You may be homely in your neighborhood To be an actor See, Mr. Factor, you make your...