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Hollywood

Due to its fame and cultural identity as the historical center of movie studios and movie stars, the word "Hollywood" is often used as shorthand for the American cinema, and is often used to refer to the greater Los Angeles area in general. While motion picture production still occurs within the Hollywood district, most major studios are actually located elsewhere in the Los Angeles region. Paramount Pictures is the only major studio still physically located within Hollywood. Other studios in the district include the aforementioned Jim Henson (formerly Chaplin) Studios, Sunset Gower Studios, and Raleigh Studios.

After many years of serious decline, when many Hollywood landmarks were threatened with demolition, Hollywood is now undergoing rapid gentrification and revitalization with the goal of urban density in mind. Many developments have been completed, typically centered on Hollywood Boulevard. The Hollywood and Highland complex (site of the Kodak Theater), has been a major catalyst for the redevelopment of the area. In addition, many fashionable bars, clubs, and retail businesses have opened on or surrounding the boulevard, returning Hollywood to a center of nightlife in Los Angeles. Many older buildings have also been converted to lofts and condominiums.

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Points of Interest

Hollywood Walk of Fame
The Hollywood Walk of Fame is a sidewalk along Hollywood Boulevard between Vine Street and Highland Avenue that serves as an entertainment museum. It is embedded with more than 2,000 five-pointed stars featuring the names of not only human celebrities but also fictional characters honored by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce for their contributions to the entertainment industry. On February 9, 1960, Joanne Woodward became the first performer to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Melrose Avenue
Melrose Avenue between La Brea and Fairfax has a reputation for being trendy and funky. It's jam-packed full of unique shops. Melrose was a popular underground and new wave shopping area beginning in the early 1980s. In recent years the area has witnessed an upsurge in tourism and a significant decrease of the underground and countercultural elements.

Hollywood Bowl
The Hollywood Bowl is a famous modern amphitheatre in the Hollywood area of Los Angeles, California, USA, that is used primarily for music performances. It has a seating capacity of 17,376.

The Hollywood Bowl is well known for its band shell, a distinctive set of concentric arches that graced the site from 1929 through 2003, before being replaced with a somewhat larger one beginning in the 2004 season. The shell is set against the backdrop of the Hollywood Hills and the famous Hollywood Sign to the Northeast. The "bowl" refers to the shape of the concave hillside the amphitheater is carved into.

It is located at 2301 North Highland Avenue, north of Hollywood Blvd and the Hollywood & Highland subway station and south of Route 101.

Hollywood & Highland
Hollywood & Highland which is spread over 387,000 square feet of retail space leased to national, regional and local retail tenants, offering the visitors a delectable array of restaurants, several Hollywood's hottest nightclubs, the popular upscale bowling alley lounge, Lucky Strike Lanes, and a six-screen state-of-the-art cinema adjacent to the world famous Grauman's Chinese Theatre.

Paramount Studios
Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still headquartered in the Hollywood district of Los Angeles. Paramount is consistently ranked as one of the top-grossing movie studios.

Neighborhoods

East Hollywood
East Hollywood encompasses the part of Hollywood east of Western Avenue and north of the 101 Hollywood Freeway. The northern border is Hollywood Boulevard and the eastern boundary is North Hoover Street. This includes the smaller communities of Thai Town and Little Armenia, the boundaries of which are fluid and often overlap.

Little Armenia is defined by the Los Angeles City Council as "the area bounded on the north by Hollywood Blvd between the 101 Freeway and Vermont Ave, on the east by Vermont Avenue from Hollywood Blvd to Santa Monica Blvd, on the south by Santa Monica Blvd between Vermont Ave and U.S. Route 101 and on the west by Route 101 from Santa Monica Blvd to Hollywood Blvd". Its name comes from the large number of Armenian-Americans that live in the area and also from the large number of Armenian stores and businesses that had already opened in the neighborhood by the early 1970s.

Thai Town is centered along Hollywood Boulevard between Normandie Avenue and Western Avenue in Hollywood. The area contains many Thai restaurants, markets and shops, including import stores, silk clothing stores and massage spas. There are also many Armenians living in the area, which is accordingly also referred to as Little Armenia. Los Angeles has the largest Thai population outside of Thailand. Roughly 80,000 of California's estimated 120,000 Thai Americans live in Los Angeles. It is also home to the world's first and only Thai Town. In 2002 there was an estimated 80,000 Thai immigrants living in Los Angeles. Thai Chinese are also included in the population. Because of this, Los Angeles is sometimes referred to as Thailand's 77th province.
Hollywood Hills
While the rest of Los Angeles sprawls across vast plains in a geometric grid, the city's canyon neighborhoods hug hillsides, creeping up, not out. Stairways to cliffside homes ascend from side streets that squiggle and dip with the slopes. A single main route is the sole connection to the nearby yet seemingly distant city. Not only do the Santa Monica Mountains create the distinct metropolitan regions of the San Fernando Valley and the Los Angeles Basin, but the range itself makes up an urban district of its own. Within the range's folds and gaps. Neighborhoods unlike any others in the region--and quite distinct from one another--provide some of L.A.'s best living. Hollywood Hills neighborhoods include Hollywood Heights, Laurel Canyon, Mount Olympus, Nichols Canyon, Outpost Estates, Sunset Flats, Sunset Hills, Whitley Heights.

Fairfax District
The Fairfax District is bordered by West Hollywood on the north, Highland Avenue on the east, West Hollywood and Beverly Hills on the west and Wilshire Boulevard on the south. The section of Fairfax Avenue that is filled with traditionally Jewish businesses is sometimes referred to by Angelenos as Kosher Canyon or "The Bagel District."