What, after all, do we mean when we say Hollywood? The rest of America speaks of a film capital, a land of cinematic dreams and commercial mythologies, of chancy but infinite opportunity. But we locals know this idealized zone really isn’t located anywhere. The real geography of movie and TV studios extends from the San Fernando Valley through the Hollywood district as far as Culver City.This dispersed presence is what I still think of as Wire Service Hollywood: The news agency for which I once wrote mandated that any Los Angeles County entertainment story be datelined Hollywood.Then there is that actual Los Angeles district, centered by the double-thoroughfare strip along Sunset and Hollywood boulevards that was once the movie business’s own downtown. In the years since, the area’s become a redundant, second commercial district for an ever-sprawling city that’s already rejected its original, central downtown.The outward movement left rot at the core. The Hollywood of 23 years ago looked like America’s foremost frost-free urban environment: great bookstores, theaters, restaurants. Pleasant, affordable housing. Seven years later, when I first worked there, it was already an uncomfortable place to be: L.A. Weekly’s then-offices on Sunset looked out on the nation’s key venue for junior high harlotry.
Source: Dome of Renown | L.A. Weekly