Hollywood, 1880. A couple from Kansas, the Wilcoxes, settled in the Los Angeles countryside and named their property Hollywood. They had no neighbours, and the area was barely populated. With the help of the authorities, the Wilcoxes laid out a major thoroughfare, Prospect Avenue, which later became the famous Hollywood Boulevard. By 1900, only 500 people lived in the village. The first film crew, who came from New York in search of good weather and varied landscapes (sea, mountains, desert, etc.), took advantage of the wilderness and created a following. In the 1910s, the first film studios opted for Hollywood, where square metres of land could be obtained for a pittance. In 1923, property developers in search of buyers erected a "Hollywoodland" sign on the neighbouring hills. Eventually, when the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce restored the sign in 1949, it dropped the last four letters as a tribute to the city of dreams and glitter. By then, Hollywood had long since become synonymous with 'glitz and glamour'. But the reality of the place wasn't quite as glittering. The area was already divided between the hills, where the homes of stars and billionaires still stand today, and the flat, populated by immigrants and working-class people. Today, the Walk of Fame and the Chinese Theatre are lined with unattractive souvenir shops and poorly maintained housing. Yet the scaffolding hanging from turn-of-the-century facades and the cranes dotting the urban landscape suggest a major facelift. And it's not just an impression. After all, this district - home to 200,000 people and whose namesake industry contributes $25 billion a year to California's economy - deserved a facelift. After all, if Los Angeles were a country, its economy would rank eighteenth in the world. And it's thanks to the entertainment industry, which employs one in five of the county's residents.
INVESTMENT, ENTERTAINMENT
The first milestone in the revitalisation of the district in 2001, the Hollywood and Highland Center is a huge shopping and entertainment centre with the famous 35,000-seat Kodak Theatre at its centre, where the Oscars ceremonies are now held. It is here that a brand new project is currently taking shape. An exclusive Cirque du Soleil show will take over the venue for eleven months of the year, starting in 2010. And when you think of the $100 million that has been put on the line for this project, you can expect a huge impact on Hollywood's economy. As one project always hides another, a whole series of announcements are currently being made in Hollywood. First, the opening of a Madame Tussauds in summer 2009, with its gallery of stars and directors. But there is also talk of building a Museum of the Motion Picture, to finally give Hollywood a film museum worthy of the name. French architect Christian de Portzamparc has been commissioned to design this future "film campus", due to open its doors in 2012, on the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Vine Street. The aim of this considerable museum: "To celebrate and explore the way in which cinema has shaped the world's culture, and to help us understand what films mean in our lives".
PROPERTY PROJECTS: OFFICES AND FLATS
But to accommodate the 10 million visitors who flock to Hollywood every year, new hotels are also needed. Of course, there's already the famous Hollywood Roosevelt. But it's been 30 years since a new hotel opened in Hollywood. So it's a W (the second in Los Angeles) that will take the plunge in 2009, along with a bevy of boutique hotels. In all, an estimated 1,000 new rooms will soon be available. But revitalising the district means more than just attracting more tourists; it also means building luxury housing to diversify the population: 6,000 flats are currently under construction, and there is talk of a million square feet (nearly 100,000 m2) of office space. As for the project for a 45-storey tower, it's just a question of signatures. And it could be the icing on the cake.
