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.
RSS