It took the better part of two days last week to dress the Hollywood Sign up in a fashion statement that read “Save The Peak,” an authorized stunt that is part of an initiative to raise money to purchase a large parcel of nearby hilltop land and prevent its residential development.
Yesterday, it came down much faster. Sensing that its end was near, I pointed the upstairs webcam at the landmark through the palms atop the neighboring ridge, zoomed in as far as I could go and still have some sort of image, then pushed the necessary keys on the computer to compile a timelapse of dawn-to-dark images of the temporary cloak’s final day on display (the hot take-down action begins at 1 p.m.):
PS. Yeah, yeah… the obstructed view ain’t nothing to brag about, but I cherish it. The sign may be over a hill and through some woods more than 4.5 miles away as the crow flies, but I like that it can be seen from inside our house. And I like to imagine that whoever lived in the 17-year-old place in 1923 when the sign was built had chance to look out time and again and see its original construction.