Star-dust in Hollywood (1930)

Chapter VIII LOS ANGELES-CUM-HOLLYWOOD /" "7~'HE name of the street in which Sam Ornitz lived ^ J does not matter, but the number of his house was one thousand seven hundred and fifty-three, which indicated its position in the town, since, however much the street names might change, the numberings of the houses marched onward east, west, north, or south from the two main streets of this widespread city. At the bottom corner of Ornitz's street was Graumann's Chinese Theatre, where the footprints of famous movie stars have been stamped into the imperishable cement of the patio, to become prizes perhaps for some future geologist who may ponder over them as we ponder over a track of the brontosaurus. Across this corner ran Hollywood Boulevard, which was flushed each afternoon with the cars of the movie population, great and small, rubbing mudguards with a determined gaiety, bounding on block by block as the automatic traffic-signals permitted, progressing thus to and from the set or the sea in much the same spasmodic manner as their films were made. This street one thousand seven hundred-odd houses away from the east-west backbone of the town sloped upward, though not steeply. Hollywood Boulevard might be taken as the boundary-line between the residential hills and the great bungalow plain which included three-quarters of the whole city of Los Angeles. In this street trees still obscured the view, but a little higher up — say among the two thousands north — you could poke your head over the tree-tops and consider the town in a coup <TceiL Beyond the two thousands the hills curved upward in a wide semicircle, hills green [132]