Sunset and Vine

Just Above Sunset
Volume 5, Number 10
March 11, 2007

The world as seen from Just Above Sunset -

"Notes on how things seem from out here in Hollywood..."

Yeah, it's the famous corner, Sunset and Vine, where Cecile B. DeMille directed Hollywood's first full length movie - The Squaw Man - for the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company. Paramount Pictures also started on this corner, but they're now down on Melrose. NBC Radio Networks (Red and Blue) built their massive west coast "Radio City" on the northeast corner here. That went up in 1938 - the Jack Benny Show and Burns and Allen and all the rest were done here. They torn that down in 1964 - NBC moved all their West Coast operations to their Burbank facilities. Now there's just a bank - Washington Mutual - with the oddest sculpture in town in the fountain out front.

There is no plaque, and nothing on the web about who did this and what it represents - but what we have here is a charging bull with the chest of a sea fish (some sort of odd morphing, that), but the bull not really charging, as a pod of small dolphins underneath seem to be moving the fellow along. And on the bull's back is a bare-breasted young woman, riding backward for no apparent reason - and above her there is this cupid with a tight Afro on her shoulder whispering in her ear. This must be very deeply symbolic. Or it may be a joke of some sort

There's a time capsule here too - to be opened in 2037, when Hollywood is finally one hundred fifty years old. Maybe there is an explanation inside.


	The skyscraper across the street is going condo - or they're filming a disaster movie.



	Just down the street is the Hollywood Palladium - where they held the Oscars for many years - and which may be torn down soon. The old CBS west coast headquarters is in the background, now mostly empty as CBS Television City down on Fairfax is where the actions is now - all the games shows and talk shows.



	It is a bit desolate here -



	But Nickelodeon has their big operation here, of course -



		Ah, the bank at Sunset and Vine isn't so bad. It has some nice touches.



	If you use any of these photos for commercial purposes I assume you'll discuss that with me. These were shot with a Nikon D70 - using lens (1) AF-S Nikkor 18-70 mm 1:35-4.5G ED, or (2) AF Nikkor 70-300mm telephoto, or after 5 June 2006, (3) AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor, 55-200 mm f/4-5.6G ED. They were modified for web posting using Adobe Photoshop 7.0 The original large-format raw files are available upon request.


	[Sunset and Vine]


	Last updated Saturday, March 10, 2007, 10:30 pm Pacific Time