A lot of people visiting Los Angeles will take photographs of the ultra-famous “Hollywood” sign perched on the hills north of the city. But that act has become more disruptive to the neighborhoods and roads near the site in the age of social media and smartphones.
This video by KCET-TV in Los Angeles explains the history of the Hollywood sign and how photographing it has changed drastically in less than a decade.
The roads and neighborhoods around the sign saw a change in the type of photographers starting in 2011. That’s when smartphones with cameras such as the iPhone and Android began to be used widely, and that coincides with the rapid rise of social-media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Basically, it’s selfie culture driving it.
As the video explains, Google Maps directs motorists to Griffith Observatory to see the sign. It’s a reflection of an agreement between the city and Google to keep traffic away from neighborhoods near the icon.
But that hasn’t stopped many people — including a few Route 66ers, undoubtedly — from trying to get closer to the site on their own.
Los Angeles Route 66 booster Scott Piotrowksi wrote on Facebook about the video and advised: “For those travelers wishing to get close to the iconic Hollywood sign, please have a look at this before you go, and make sure that you obey the laws and be kind to the neighborhood.”
In a few years, the Hollywood sign site will mark its 100th year. It’s changed over the years — including the “land” in the sign’s original “Hollywoodland” going away in 1949. Because of the changes to the sign and a full replacement in the late 1970s, it’s not on the National Register of Historic Places. It is, however, listed as a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument.
(Hat tip to Scott Piotrowski; image of the Hollywood sign in California by Gnaphron via Flickr)
I grew up in Glendale (basically looking at the hill on the opposite side of the sign), and got a trespassing warning around 1990, basically saying if I went up there again I’d be arrested. I believe it’s still illegal to go up to the sign, with the two main concerns being vandalism as well as the close proximity to the emergency communications towers that are on the top of the ridge.
What a joke – a sign relating to a whole industry designed just to get crowds into small areas to buy its products is causing problems because it tends “to get crowds into small areas”. Why, you could make a film about it……
Strange that in “The Land of the Free”, walking over open land is a criminal offence. If that had been the case on 9 Nov 1620, all those on the Mayflower would have been arrested on stepping ashore.
It may be “open land,” but it’s still private property.
In the UK, trespass is largely a civil offence, and damage has be be proved to make it criminal. Hence we have groups of itinerents (also called gypsies, didicoys and, euphemistically, travellers) who invade private poperty (even car parks), with vans and caravans ( trailers to Usans), stay for days, weeks, months, often do damage, always leave loads of debris and rubbish for the owner to clear up. Civil court cases take weeks, months. Then it is on to another patch of private property. And the government refuses to change the law.