Who's idea was it to make that big Hollywood sign?!


Question: http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1265000/im...


Answers: http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1265000/im...

The huge HOLLYWOOD sign in the hills above Hollywood, CA is one of those iconic things that everyone has seen a million times. But have you ever wondered where it came from?

It all started in 1923. Imagine if you will a large developer who owns a lot of land in LA. The developer, named Hollywoodland Realty, is planning to open a new development. They want to get the word out, and apparently there are no sign or zoning ordinances to get in the way of a really, really big sign.

hollywoodland sign
Public Domain
The original "Hollywoodland" sign in the 1920s.

So Hollywoodland Realty put up a gigantic sign that said HOLLYWOODLAND. The letters were 30 feet wide and 50 feet high. They were lit by thousands of light bulbs (so many bulbs that a guy lived in a cabin near the sign and replaced burned out bulbs every day). And the sign was located high in the hills where everyone could see it.

That is the birth of the HOLLYWOOD sign.

By the 1940s the sign was abandoned and falling apart. The Chamber of Commerce took over the sign in 1949, repaired it and removed the last four letters.

hollywood sign today
Photo courtesy of PD Photo/Photographer Jon Sullivan
The letters on the sign today are 1.5 m (5 ft) shorter than the original.
By the 1960s the sign was falling apart again, as was Hollywood itself. That's hard to imagine today, but Hollywood had a noticeable decline in the 1960s. In 1977, Hugh Hefner organized a fundraising drive and fixed the sign again. Hollywood recovered, obviously, and the sign is likely to be a part of the landscape for centuries to come. The sign is now in the care of the Hollywood Sign Trust, which completed another refurbishment of the letters in November of 2005.

probably people with no life

The sign originally read "HOLLYWOODLAND", and its purpose was to advertise a new housing development in the hills above the Hollywood district of Los Angeles. H.J. Whitley had already used a sign to advertise his development Whitley Heights, which was located between Highland Avenue and Vine. He suggested to his friend Harry Chandler, the owner of the Los Angeles Times, that the land syndicate he was involved in make a similar sign to advertise their land. Real estate developers Woodruff and Shoults called their development "Hollywoodland" and advertised it as a "superb environment without excessive cost on the Hollywood side of the hills."

Who cares.



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