Hollywood & Highland Opens Its Doors

Re “There’s a New Buzz on Hollywood Blvd.,” Nov. 8:

Now that we have a world-class shopping and entertainment center in the heart of Hollywood, how about shutting down traffic on Hollywood Boulevard between Vine and La Brea between 5 p.m. and 2 a.m. every day (or at least on weekends) and letting horse-drawn carts and bicycle taxis take care of visitors?

Has anyone offered this idea to the Hollywood redevelopment planners? San Diego, San Francisco and others have it; how about Hollywood? I’m sure there are many struggling students who would be more than eager to drive bicycle taxis.

Berge Wassilian

Los Angeles

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The new TrizecHahn mall will not save Hollywood. It will cost it. The public has helped pay for this new mall with $90 million in property taxes diverted by the L.A. redevelopment agency. That’s $90 million that could have helped our schools, parks or decaying infrastructure. Its typical mix of national chain stores will lure shoppers away from local independent businesses. Its lavish new theater will be used for the Academy Awards, leaving the perfectly good Shrine Auditorium to languish.

Private malls should not get public handouts. Productive jobs and housing are what Southern California needs, not shopping and entertainment playgrounds paid for with our tax dollars.

Chris Norby

Fullerton City Council

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I read with pleasure of the laudable goal of revitalizing Hollywood, but I must take exception to labeling the Hollywood & Highland-Kodak Theatre complex “kitschy.” The symbolic form visible in your plan of the Babylon Court captures the essence of the entire project with its unmistakable toilet bowl shape. To characterize this mammoth project as kitsch is to do a disservice to the word.

Harry Wolf

Malibu