Lighting the Hollywood Sign
The issue of lighting the Hollywood sign as a commercial stunt is much more than an aesthetic controversy. For thousands of people who live in the Hollywood Hills--and possibly countless other citizens elsewhere--it is potentially a matter of life and death.
Actual experience during the 1984 Olympics was that lighting the sign attracted thousands of gawkers to the area near the sign.
Narrow streets in the area were recurrently jammed with cars, bumper-to-bumper, so that emergency vehicles could not get through. Police had to improvise roadblocks to stem the traffic.
Sightseers clustered in disorderly roadside swarms (likewise necessitating repeated police action), and amid other vandalism tossed burning cigarettes into the dry brush.
Except for the fortuitous absence of winds at the time, this could have caused uncontrollable brush fires that might have raged all the way to City Hall and beyond.
Residents see this current sign-illumination as an entering wedge for repeated commercial lighting of the sign that would not stop short of a municipal disaster.
GLADWIN HILL
Los Angeles
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