Hollywood Sign

The Hollywood Sign was not built for the movies. It was built in 1923 to sell houses. Real estate developers, including Los Angeles Times publisher Harry Chandler, spent $21,000 erecting the 13-letter “HOLLYWOODLAND” sign on Mount Lee to advertise a new hillside residential subdivision. Each letter stood about 13 metres tall, was built from sheet metal rigged to telephone poles, and blinked with 4,000 twenty-watt bulbs at night. The plan was to leave it up for 18 months. Nobody got around to taking it down, the last four letters were eventually removed, and what remained became one of the most recognised structures on earth. The original sheet metal panels were believed lost until 2005, when they surfaced on eBay.

Knowing that, you arrive at the sign with a slightly different attitude than the average selfie-hunter. This is a piece of urban accidental history sitting on a mountain in a national park within the borders of a major city.

Getting a View of the Sign

You cannot walk up to the sign itself. The perimeter around the letters is fenced and monitored by LAPD cameras and motion sensors. What you can do is hike to an overlook on Mount Lee directly above and behind the sign, or find one of several excellent viewpoints at lower elevation.

Lake Hollywood Reservoir (the best ground-level view): The western edge of Lake Hollywood Park on Lake Hollywood Drive gives a clear, relatively close view of the sign with nothing in the way. This is widely considered the best photography spot. It is about a 15-minute walk from the nearest street parking on Weidlake Drive or Tahoe Drive. The walk itself is flat and easy.

Griffith Observatory: The observatory sits on the south face of the Santa Monica Mountains and gives a panoramic view that includes both the sign and the Los Angeles basin behind you. Parking at the observatory is free but fills fast on weekends. The LADOT DASH Observatory bus runs every 20 minutes from 10am to 9:45pm, seven days a week, from the Los Feliz area, and removes the parking problem entirely.

Mount Lee Trail (above the sign): The main hiking route is now accessed from Beachwood Drive or Canyon Drive in the Hollywoodland neighbourhood, rather than through the Beachwood Gate that was closed in 2017. The full hike to the overlook above the sign is around 6 kilometres return with about 270 metres of elevation gain, rated moderate. Griffith Park trails run from sunrise to sunset with no reservation required and no fee.

Runyon Canyon Park: For a shorter option with city views included, Runyon Canyon on the north end of Cahuenga Pass is a popular spot. It takes about 20 to 30 minutes to reach the upper section where the sign is visible.

The trails are open 365 days a year. There is no timed entry, no reservation system, and no trail fee. Arrive before 8am on weekends to avoid the worst of the crowds on the hiking routes.

The Neighbourhood: Los Feliz and Silver Lake

The most useful base for visiting the Hollywood Sign is Los Feliz, just south of Griffith Park. The neighbourhood has better restaurants and more interesting independent shops than the tourist corridor of Hollywood Boulevard and is 10 to 15 minutes from the main trailheads.

Eating: Trattoria Farfalla on Hillhurst Avenue is a reliable Italian option with handmade pasta at moderate prices (25 to 40 dollars per person). For tacos, Guerrilla Tacos in Atwater Village (10 minutes east of Los Feliz) has earned genuine local respect for creative fillings using market produce. For breakfast before an early hike, Alcove Cafe on Hillhurst is a neighbourhood institution with a shaded garden patio that opens at 8am.

In Hollywood itself, the options near the sign are mostly tourist-facing and overpriced. If you want a meal with a view over the city, Perch LA in downtown Los Angeles (a 30-minute drive south) has a rooftop bar and restaurant with genuinely good panoramic views, though the food is secondary.

Staying: The Kimpton Everly Hotel on Vine Street in Hollywood is the most convenient mid-range option for the sign and Griffith Park, with rooms typically in the 200 to 300 dollar range and good access to the main road network. The Chateau Marmont on Sunset Boulevard is for those with considerably more budget flexibility (from 500 dollars per night) and a preference for a certain kind of old Hollywood mythology. In Silver Lake, several smaller boutique hotels and Airbnb properties offer better value for money than the Hollywood corridor, with easy access to both the park and the neighbourhood restaurant scene.

A Few Things Most Guides Miss

The sign blinks in a specific sequence in historic photographs and the memory of it. The 1923 original illuminated “HOLLY” then “WOOD” then “LAND” in sequence each night. That theatrical approach to signage was standard real estate marketing in 1920s Los Angeles and gives some context for the entertainment culture the city later built around exactly that kind of spectacle.

The Hollywoodland neighbourhood directly below the sign is worth exploring on foot. It retains much of its 1920s character, including stone gateposts that once marked the entrance to the development, English Tudor and Spanish Colonial Revival houses on winding lanes, and a clear sense of what the developers were trying to sell. It is a genuinely pleasant walk separate from any hiking ambition, and the streets are quiet enough that you can actually look at things.

Griffith Park itself is one of the largest urban parks in the United States at over 17 square kilometres, and most visitors see only the Observatory and the sign hike. The Los Angeles Zoo is inside the park, as is the Greek Theatre (outdoor concerts run through summer and autumn), the Travel Town Museum with its collection of historic locomotives, and about 80 kilometres of trails. If you have more than a morning, the park rewards a full day.