Your Neighbourhood

[vienna]

Originally Posted by eisenwurst

Thanks vienna. That was really good.

Some impressions:-

Wow, how clean the place is. Virtually no rubbish on the footpath, no graffitti, I only saw one beggar, and no "homeless" people sleeping rough. Sure signs of great Civic Pride

All those stars on the footpath 1000s of them, I didn't think that there were that many celebrities in the whole world let alone the Silver Screen.

...

Originally Posted by em2nought

I was amazed too, Hollywood must ship all their homeless to San Francisco.

Hollywood Blvd. is part of what is called here in LA a "BID", a Business Improvement District, a coalition of local businesses who pool funds to pay for services either not provided by the City or to augment provided services; in Hollywood, that includes private security patrols to supplement the LAPD presence, power steam street cleaning, and graffiti abatement, among other things. There was once a Courthouse open on Hollywood Blvd. but it closed due to budget cuts; one of the creative sentences petty offenders received in that Courthouse was doing community service cleaning up trash and graffiti all around the Hollywood area; it wasn't unusual to see some person cleaning up the streets and gutter outside a club they had partied at and then been busted for public drunkenness a day or two earlier...

The homeless are around in Hollywood, but have mostly been chased off the main Blvd. and are mostly found on side street areas. Just in the past few weeks, a "no Vending Zone" has been established on Hollywood Blvd. and the surrounding side streets for several blocks to the North ans South of the Blvd., in order to remove street vendors; this has also had the added effect of reducing the homeless presence...

Hollywood Blvd. is officially on the National Registry of historical places an, as such, is protected from the wiles of property developers who would just love to tear it all up and put up more high-rises and Starbucks...


The "Walk of Fame" stars are for more than just films; they are also placed for TV, radio, musical recording, and stage performance. They also encompass more than just the celebrity talent: producers. directors, agents, writers, makeup artists, costume designers, and many others are among those who get trod on daily:


Official Website for the Hollywood Walk of Fame --

https://www.walkoffame.com/


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_Walk_of_Fame


Some persons have more than one star, if they are known for work in different areas of entertainment; the person with the most stars is the old singing cowboy, Gene Autry; part of the reason is because Autry was also a major businessman in Hollywood, owning, among other things, one of the first TV stations in the US, so the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, who administer the Walk, was more than willing to give Autry as many stars as they could. There are also "special stars" placed on the Walk, usually for some tie-in with corporate donors. There is one, or, rather, four stars that are unique on the walk: at all four corners of the famed intersection of Hollywood Blvd. & Vine St., there are special "moons" placed to commemorate the First Lunar Landing (appropriately with the "TV" icon):





I have seen several of the ceremonies that accompany the installation of stars over the decades; the most pleasantly recalled was the ceremony for Raquel Welch that I literally walked in on as I was leaving a movie theater; she was just a couple of feet from me and I recall she was rather more petite than I had imagined...


There were sad ones, too; the great character actor Forrest Tucker was to have gotten his star and, though he was gravely ill, he insisted on being at the ceremony; the organizers even rented a mobile dressing room trailer he could wait in until the ceremony started, however, he collapsed before the start of the ceremony and was rushed to the hospital and passed away a couple of months later without having seen his star...


There is one star that is not on the sidewalk: Muhammad Ali jokingly stipulated that if he were to get a star, it would not be on the sidewalk, since he didn't want people stepping on him. The Chamber took his 'request' to heart and placed his star on the wall of the building that house the Dolby (formerly Kodak) Theater, the site of the Oscar awards:





There are still fans who leave flowers at the base of the star on The Champs birthday and on the anniversary of his death...









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