Today I walked over to Hollywood. And I had company for the first 5 hours. Melody, a friend since she and Carol took the pups to dog agility class together, walked with me. It was great to catch up as we hadn't seen each other in a while.

The route took us from Burbank, over the Hollywood Hills into Hollywood proper. After Carol came to retrieve Melody in the middle of Hollywood (13 miles into the walk), I continued back through Silver Lake and Griffith Park to where I had started.

Being a Hollywood walk, it seemed appropriate to walk by a few studios. We walked by three movie studios (Disney, Warner Brothers, Paramount) and one TV studio (NBC). Of course, only Paramount is actually in Hollywood.



Near the Hollywood Reservoir, we saw these great gates to the Toyon Tanks. It took a trip to the Internet after getting back home to find out that these two huge underground tanks are the largest of their type in the world. Each tank holds 30 million gallons of water. The previous role of the Hollywood Reservoir is now being handled by these tanks. They still, however, keep the Reservoir filled in case of emergency. You can read more about it here.




At the top of Beachwood Canyon, we managed to get quite close to the Hollywood Sign. The sign was erected back in 1924 as an advertisment for the neighborhood we were walking in. Originally, the sign read Hollywoodland.




We came across this garage door owned by, I'm assuming, a book lover!!




I remember this Garden of Oz from when Carol and I were exploring the neighborhood. This is just a SMALL sample of what is there. I have never seen so much tile before in my life. It is really amazing!




The Hollywoodland neighborhood has 6 historic stone staircases. We took this fancy dual divided model. The planters in the median used to be pools of water. Pretty cool!




I found out about Whitley Heights in Walking LA. Back in the day, this neighborhood was home to Rudolph Valentino, Judy Garland and Charlie Chaplin. It is a wonderfully quiet neighborhood surprisingly close to downtown Hollywood and the Hollywood Freeway. This is a staircase in that neighborhood, the Whitley Terrace Steps.




Here, a tree is supporting the wall of a garage. I wonder what earthquake caused this... Scary!!




Across Highland Boulevard, nestled behind the Hollywood Bowl, and again thanks to Walking LA, we found the amazing High Tower neighborhood. Here, there are many homes that are only accessible by foot. This is a picture of the top of High Tower, what the neighborhood is named for. It is an elevator for the residents.




And this is one of the pedestrian "streets".




Soon we were in Tourist Central, Grauman's Chinese Theater on Hollywood Boulevard.




I felt compelled to take a picture like all the other tourists.




After taking a picture of Douglas Fairbanks' hand and footprints, we headed over to his final resting place. Along the way, we saw this rather colorful camper van.




Soon we were at Hollywood Forever Cemetary. This is Douglas Fairbanks' tomb and monument. At the time it was built, it cost $40,000 and was the most expensive monument in Southern California.

It was soon after this that Melody said goodbye.




Along Beverly Boulevard, I passed these marchers. I think they were from an area church. They even had a guy shouting through a distorted megaphone. I couldn't figure out what he was saying - mainly because I don't speak Spanish.




If you read about my third training walk, you may remember that I was unsuccessful in finding the original home of Disney Studios. Well, thanks to my friend Cliff, I found it this time. Tada!! There is a Gelson's Market on the spot now. It is located on Hyperion Avenue. Hence the name for Disney's Hyperion Books.



And finally, I walked by the home where Mabel Monohan was famously murdered. The story was made into a movie in 1958 called I want to Live!. Susan Hayward won the Oscar for her role in that film as Barbara Graham.



Soon my sore feet and I finished walking for the day!!

Have a great week!!

Labels: Hollywood, Training Walk