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The Hollywood Sign
The white letters on the Los Angeles hills
The Hollywood Sign spells out its namesake in 45-foot-tall white letters across the south slope of Mount Lee in the Santa Monica Mountains, overlooking Los Angeles. Erected in 1923, it originally read HOLLYWOODLAND as an advertisement for a housing development, and the last four letters were removed in 1949 as the sign became a symbol of the film industry and the city itself.
By the 1970s the letters had decayed badly, and a public campaign — with donors including Hugh Hefner and Alice Cooper — funded a full rebuild in 1978. The sign is now protected, floodlit at night on occasion, and guarded against vandalism and hikers who try to reach the letters.