Sunday, January 28, 2007

Where we live - visual reference

A friend sent this to me just after we moved into the new place late last month.

His pointer actually goes to the Buddhist Temple just down the block from where we live (we're on the north side of that parking lot, if you can make it out).

His caption reads:

Is this your place?
I'll be watching you.
Kinda creepy, wouldn't ya say?
Happy New Year!


There's another pointer that asks: Hey, is this a Starbucks?

You can see the Chateau Marmont (where Belushi did himself in), the Mondrian (where that stupid Sky Bar is) and (sub) Standard just West of us on Sunset.

Elsewhere online, I found this little piece of trivia about our corner:

Lastly in Hollywood, there's a wistful spot at the southwest corner of Sunset Boulevard and Crescent Heights. If you remember Joni Mitchell singing "They paved paradise, and put up a parking lot" in the song "Big Yellow Taxi," then take note. It was written about a hotel that used to sit here. The Garden of Allah was Hollywood's famed apartment-hotel that welcomed transient show business guests from 1935-1955. Errol Flynn, Clark Gable, Greta Garbo, W.C. Fields, Humphrey Bogart, F. Scott Fitzgerald, the Marx Brothers, Orson Welles - they all lived here. Mitchell wrote the song about this place, as a supposed metaphor for the destruction of a cultural monument. (And yes, it is a parking lot today, for a bank that's here now.)

Now it's a parking lot for a McDonald's as well.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Love the map--especially after I discovered I could click on it and get it enlarged! Really enjoying your stories of your TV writing class--I'm learning a lot about the process, too.
Eleanor (Mom-in-law)

Anonymous said...

How are you doing? We're thinking about driving up in the next few weeks... Miss the beagle. Glad you discovered you coudl make the map bigger by clicking on it....

m

Anonymous said...

It is a bit creepy all these satellite maps of our neighborhoods. And I know your neighborhood fairly well, as a visitor, not a stalker. There's a Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf around there too. Well, it's been a couple of years. :)

Great stuff on the class, BTW.

Cheers,
J.D.