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Hollywood patches up famed strip

Frederick's of Hollywood is a mainstay on Hollywood Boulevard. Over 50 years, the boulevard, where movie stars once cruised in convertibles, declined from glamorous to seedy. Now, thanks to an US$800 million infusion of public and private investment, it has become an area where Los Angeles revelers and tourists amicably coexist. PHOTO: NY TIMES

Around 11pm on a recent Friday night on the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street, two worlds collided. Disney's Lion King let out from the newly restored Pantages Theater, and a crowd of ticket holders spilled onto the sidewalk, some still singing Hakuna Matata, the show's hit song.

Across the street, a knot of young women in short skirts and men in designer leather jackets jostled behind the velvet rope at Deep, a trendy nightclub, trying to make eye contact with the indifferent doorman.

The juxtaposition of the wholesome and the hip didn't last more than a few minutes, but the brief encounter is symbolic of the new Hollywood Boulevard, a historic strip that has seen more set changes than a Busby Berkeley musical.

Over 50 years, the four-lane boulevard, where movie stars once cruised in their convertibles, declined from glamorous to seedy. Now, thanks to an US$800 million infusion of public and private investment, it has become an area where a glass-boxed Gap store looks out upon the kitschy original Frederick's of Hollywood -- and where Los Angeles night crawlers and camera-toting out-of-towners amicably coexist.

"Hollywood Boulevard has the tourist spots that you can take Aunt Ethel to see on the west, and the new lounges and bars for the locals further east," said Kerry Morrison, executive director of the Hollywood Entertainment District Property Owners Association. Since its inception in 1996, the association has overseen an 18-block stretch of the boulevard, from La Brea Avenue to Gower Street, that is best known for a booming night-life scene.

Even the Oscars are coming home to this area, most recently known for its homeless people, including many teen-age runaways, and peep shows. The first Academy Awards ceremony took place in 1929 at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel (now undergoing a facelift). But the show moved away from Hollywood in 1961. Next year's Academy Awards will be held in the 16,700m2 Kodak Theater at Hollywood & Highland, a new US$615 million mastodon of an entertainment complex on the west side of the boulevard, with more than 75 shops and restaurants, a hotel and ballroom, and a movie memorabilia museum opened by Debbie Reynolds.

"We want a renaissance, but we don't want to sterilize Hollywood Boulevard," said Leron Gubler, the executive director of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. "The wig shops and tattoo parlors are a part of the history too."

Teves Lee, standing outside her barbershop, Afros of Hollywood, said: "The neighborhood is definitely changing, but people with piercings and tattoos like me are happy about it too. This is a nice street now."

According to the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, more than 9.5 million tourists visit Hollywood Boulevard every year. Many may wonder whatever happened to the mythic main street of the filmmaking industry. "I knew a time when you could pull up to a stoplight on the boulevard and there would be Clark Gable on your right; he would talk to you until the light turned green, and then drive away," said Johnny Grant, 78, the chairman of the Walk of Fame, a committee that engraves the marble stars along the sidewalk with famous names. (Martin Lawrence is the latest to make the grade.)

Former glory

From the 1920s through the 1950s, Hollywood Boulevard was the center of town, with its ornate movie theaters like the Egyptian, El Capitan and Grauman's Chinese. Restaurants like the Brown Derby, Clara Bow's It Cafe, Musso & Frank Grill and the Pig 'N Whistle did business alongside them, attracting moviegoers and movie stars.

The decline can be traced to the decentralization of Los Angeles and the emergence of the city's sprawling suburbs at mid-century. When movie theaters opened in neighboring communities like Burbank and Westwood in the 1960s, there was little reason to head to Hollywood for dinner and a show. Gradually, the posh shops and restaurants closed and the wig shops and tattoo parlors moved in.

"This is a city known for throwing away its past," said Ken Bernstein, director of preservation issues at the Los Angeles Conservancy, a historic preservation group. "Thankfully, we're restoring those beautiful old theaters instead of tearing them down and starting over."

In the past decade, El Capitan, the Egyptian, the Pantages and other theaters have been returned to their former grandeur. The Pig 'N Whistle, which had become a pizza parlor, has also been resurrected by a night-life impresario, Chris Breed. His last venture, the Sunset Room in Hollywood, still clings to its status as a hot spot.

"My dad always talked about Hollywood and movie stars when I was growing up; I wanted to recreate a piece of that past," said Breed, who with a partner, Alan Hajjar, invested more than US$1.5 million in renovating the Pig 'N Whistle. The big-screen televisions suspended above the bar detract from the opulent restoration, and beds serving as banquettes in a back room -- known as NuBar, and usually booked for private parties -- are a decidedly 21st-century touch.

The restaurant, like most of Hollywood Boulevard, manages to meld the past with the present. It is not unusual to see visitors admiring the ornate facade of a 1927 movie palace before sauntering into a souvenir shop for a framed photo of Tom Cruise.

Although modern-day idols like Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts hardly cruise the strip or chat up tourists, stars have been spotted at the new clubs and bars. "Most of the celebrities who come here like to be around the action, not in the VIP rooms," said Ivan Kane, Deep's owner, as dancers in lingerie writhed in vitrines that suggested kinky dioramas in a natural history museum.

At Star Shoes, a retro bar across the street from Deep that opened four months ago, the fashionable crowd sipped fruity concoctions called pink pumps while admiring vintage footwear for sale in the display windows. (The drinks sell much better than the real pumps and sandals, which cost an average of US$150 or so.)

Creative crowd

"Hollywood Boulevard attracts more interesting and creative people, like artists and filmmakers and writers; it's not creepy, crowded or clubby like Sunset Boulevard," said Audrey Bernstein, a party promoter who runs a Monday night mixer called Cachet, with a partner, Apple Via, at Les Deux Cafes, the celebrity-friendly bistro on nearby Las Palmas Avenue. A New York transplant, Bernstein used to run a party named Velveteen at the Chelsea Hotel.

Much of the new night life takes place on Hollywood Boulevard's side streets. Inside the Burgundy Room, on Cahuenga Boulevard, a crush of hipsters recently sang along to the "Laverne and Shirley" theme song. A few doors down, live folk music and stiff lattes were the specialties at a bohemian cafe called Hotel.

Across the street from Hotel, a three-month-old boutique called Blest, which sells adventurous clothes by local designers, was open until midnight. It is the only store in the immediate vicinity that doesn't specialize in wigs, tattoos, stiletto-heeled stripper shoes or cheap souvenirs.

"We knew that it was going to be an up-and-coming area," said Christina Carey, Blest's co-owner, explaining why she and a partner opened in the heart of Hollywood. "Plus, we didn't want to be grouped in with all of the stores on Melrose. We wanted our own identity."

Not everyone, though, has embraced the new-and-improved Hollywood Boulevard. "I'm afraid that they're pulling a Giuliani here, trying to make it all safe and Disneylike," said Ari Palitz, an independent filmmaker who moved to Hollywood from New York a year ago. "I like it edgy and a little dangerous."

Palitz may favor a glamorously seedy atmosphere, but the Hollywood Boulevard business owners do not. According to a study by the Los Angeles Police Department, crime in the neighborhood has dropped 40 percent over the last few years. Much of the decline is attributed to the armed security that business owners in the Entertainment District have hired to patrol their sections of the boulevard.

"People are finally walking down the streets again; I feel like we have a real community here," said Kimberly Herrmann, a former MTV producer who plans to open a supper club and screening room called Cinespace on the boulevard in February. A dance club, the Ivar, will occupy the first floor of the building she and her partners have leased.

By the end of next year, in fact, a dozen other new bars, clubs and restaurants are planning to open on Hollywood Boulevard and its side streets.

A few years ago, Jay Leno made this late-night television offering, "If God doesn't destroy Hollywood Boulevard, he owes Sodom and Gomorrah an apology."

The joke was pretty lame then. Now it's also out of date.
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