In the 1970's - Hollywood had hit the skids
I returned home (to Hollywood) in 1977. I had spent the last 4 years away at college.
Wow...
Things had sure changed. For one thing - everybody left!? Friends and families left town. Stores were boarded up, businesses left town, family restaurants closed up, historic hotels became flop houses, grand movie palaces went dark.
Quite literally, Hollywood was falling down.
It seemed while I was gone, Hollywood became a refuge for runaways, outcast, drug addicts, homeless and crazies.
The big department store closed down (Broadway), followed by other fine clothing stores. Seedy operations began opening up in their place. The smaller movie houses shifted their booking to X-rated films. Fine restaurants closed and reopened as greasy spoons serving to greasy people.
It was very sad for me to see this legendary street with gorgeous architecture go derelict.
The decline started sometime in the 1950's when movie production shifted from Hollywood to the outlying communities taking with them many good paying jobs. Consequently, upscale businesses and restaurants that had catered to a higher-paid clientele could not survive.
Economic hard times followed. Banks closed up shop. Check cashing joints sprung up where family restaurants and markets once stood. Stores now sold mostly cheap electronics, t-shirts, tacky souvenir shops and trashy lingerie.
Then, in the late 1960s, the courts liberalized obscenity laws. Many ramshackle Hollywood theaters made big bucks showing XXX fare. With the porno movies came the hookers, with the hookers came the drugs, and Hollywood had gone to seed. It wasn't safe walking down the street, especially at night. It was a dangerous place full of people that need money for drugs.
The 1970's saw a decline in the public school system.Schools started busing students from one neighborhood to another. This only encouraged middle income families with school age kids to flee to the suburbs. As the tax dollars left, so did the quality of the schools. Hollywood schools became some of the worst in the county.
Suddenly things weren't so pretty.
Southwest corner of Hollywood Blvd and Las Palmas
lapl.org
________________________
All this was very sad...
I returned home (to Hollywood) in 1977. I had spent the last 4 years away at college.
Wow...
Things had sure changed. For one thing - everybody left!? Friends and families left town. Stores were boarded up, businesses left town, family restaurants closed up, historic hotels became flop houses, grand movie palaces went dark.
Quite literally, Hollywood was falling down.
It seemed while I was gone, Hollywood became a refuge for runaways, outcast, drug addicts, homeless and crazies.
The big department store closed down (Broadway), followed by other fine clothing stores. Seedy operations began opening up in their place. The smaller movie houses shifted their booking to X-rated films. Fine restaurants closed and reopened as greasy spoons serving to greasy people.
It was very sad for me to see this legendary street with gorgeous architecture go derelict.
The decline started sometime in the 1950's when movie production shifted from Hollywood to the outlying communities taking with them many good paying jobs. Consequently, upscale businesses and restaurants that had catered to a higher-paid clientele could not survive.
Economic hard times followed. Banks closed up shop. Check cashing joints sprung up where family restaurants and markets once stood. Stores now sold mostly cheap electronics, t-shirts, tacky souvenir shops and trashy lingerie.
Then, in the late 1960s, the courts liberalized obscenity laws. Many ramshackle Hollywood theaters made big bucks showing XXX fare. With the porno movies came the hookers, with the hookers came the drugs, and Hollywood had gone to seed. It wasn't safe walking down the street, especially at night. It was a dangerous place full of people that need money for drugs.
The 1970's saw a decline in the public school system.Schools started busing students from one neighborhood to another. This only encouraged middle income families with school age kids to flee to the suburbs. As the tax dollars left, so did the quality of the schools. Hollywood schools became some of the worst in the county.
Suddenly things weren't so pretty.
Southwest corner of Hollywood Blvd and Las Palmas
lapl.org
________________________
All this was very sad...
2 comments:
I first lived in Hollywood in 2000 and it was still pretty seedy.I returned in 2004 and it was a very different place.I have a kind of morbid interest in the bad old days but I can't find any info about it on the net.Any ideas?
I grew up in Hollyweird from 1960 (at age one) to 1979. Yes it was once a glittery wonderful place to be, but when i hit my teens it did change. It was my hangout, and my friends there were boy hookers, hustlers and a couple of wonderful drag queens. We had fun in the mid 70s but once i graduated from Hollywood High in '77, i was done with it all...Moved to San Francisco but when I returned in 1995, it was no longer HOME. I dont know the place any more. My son now goes to The Whisky and loves hearing my stories of the true original Punk days and the bands i hung out with....but he knows its not like it was....
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