Huge snow-white letters located on the slope of Mount Lee in the Hollywood Hills area are one of the most recognizable attractions in Los Angeles, very often they are associated with the American film industry. For the first time, the Hollywood sign was installed in 1923 as a billboard, but not of a movie studio as it may seem at first glance. The purpose of installing these giant letters was to attract people to buy the new plots of suburban land. The head of that advertising campaign was Harry Chandler, publisher of the Los Angeles Times, who spent a great sum of $21,000 on the installation of the sign (the equivalent of today's $ 250,000).
Initially, the sign consisted of 13 letters and it was «Hollywoodland», the new residential districts had the same name. By the way, the original sign was decorated with 4,000 light bulbs that glowed all night, alternately highlighting first «Holly», then «Wood» and finally «Land». However, several letters were removed over time and now the world-famous «Hollywoo» sign stands out on Mount Lee. The condition of the letters began to get deteriorated, despite the efforts of, first, the official guardian of the sign, and then of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce and the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks. The destruction occurred because the letters were made of metal sheets and wood. In order to preserve the sign musician Alice Cooper conducted a campaign to restore it in 1978. As a result, nine (as the number of letters on the sign) sponsors were found, including Alice himself, who donated 250 thousand dollars to create new letters of durable steel. The next time the sign was updated in 2005 when the letters were completely repainted. It is interesting that, according to the plans, the sign was supposed to be on the mountain for only a year and a half. However, it towers over Los Angeles as a symbol of Hollywood's «dream factory» for more than a century.