What Flattened the Top of Mt. Lee (of Hollywood Sign Fame)?
 

Like me, maybe you've wondered why the top of Mt. Lee is so flat?

This article from KCET explains that Mack Sennett almost built a mansion there...

http://www.kcet.org/updaily/socal_fo...sign-fame.html


Before / after grading:

http://wwww.dkse.net/david/mount_lee.comparison.jpg

Agree, great photo. On the left side, above the lighted entryway, it looks like you can even see two people peering out the window. You mentioned it happened in the middle of the night; do you remember the time you took the photograph?

:previous: That's an interesting read....thanks for the link David.

I never knew about Mack Sennett's plan to build atop what is now known as Mount Lee.

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/746/b8D3mn.jpg

The article also mentions Mack Sennett's Bathing Beauties posing on steam shovels and various other equipment.
These amusing photos were posted on NLA in the first year of the thread (unable to find them at the moment)

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By coincidence, I came across this photograph of 'Mt. Hollywood' on ebay yesterday. Is this correct...is it Mt. Hollywood (aka Mt. Lee)?
The seller dates it 1900, but to me there appears to have been some grading done already.

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/128...674/kkrjKr.jpg
http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/640...540/TJWstv.jpgebay


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That's about the size of my guest villa in Tuscany. :)

:previous: lol
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Here's a wonderful looking cafe that we haven't seen yet on noirish Los Angeles.

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/540/sTiTII.jpg
ebay


reverse (it was stuck in an album, but you can still make out some of the details)
http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800...539/hFTXNv.jpg
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http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/640...913/7GABt9.jpg

Actually there were two negatives. (I turned them into positives 4you)



http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/537/ENnLnU.jpg
ebay

above: I'm curious about the tall stand-alone smokestack on the left.



below: notice the workmen putting in windows on the right.

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/673/07307N.jpg
ebay

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Early PR for the glamorous Los Angeles lifestyle: Live broadcast by the pool in 1939 at the Don Lee studios. The pool was on top of Mt. Lee. That's the TV studio in the background [left]. (courtesy of Steve Dichter)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...psd9c3963d.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...ps0bb04dbd.jpg
CD files

I can't tell you what it was, but I can tell where it was. Here's a better view taken from the Lankershim building in 1917. When I first saw this angle I thought the smokestack was on top of the Pacific Telephone Company Building at 716 S Olive, but that didn't fit with e_r's picture. Then I realized that there just happens to be a small structure on the roof that looks like it's the base of the smokestack across the street.

http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...1.jpg~original
USC Digital Library

It's hard to see, but the smokestack was still there in 1972. I can't see it on the 1980 image.

http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...mokestack2.jpg
Historic Aerials

The Baist maps don't show the smokestack, but they do show the Hotel Gilpin between it and Olive. The space between the smokestack and Grand is labeled "Bouton's Sub". Between 1914 and 1921, the Coulter Dry Goods Store appeared on the corner of 7th and Olive - would this have needed a slightly detached smokestack?

Speaking of the Pacific Telephone Company Building at 716 S Olive, BifRayRock posted this picture last year.

I found the reference below in 'An Arch Guidebook to Los Angeles by Robert Winter'.

http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...elephoneCo.jpg
books.google.com

Just to clarify: Mount Lee and Mount Hollywood are two separate peaks (labeled 'A' and 'B' respectively on the aerial below. The interesting KCET article posted by David is about the grading of Mount Hollywoodland, which became Mount Lee. The comments below the article seem to suggest that Mount Hollywoodland was never an official designation. Nathan Masters, the author of the article, writes the following reply: "The USGS might have never recognized the name, but I did find several references to 'Mount Hollywoodland' (which is confusing, considering its proximity to Mount Hollywood)." Mary Mallory, author of a book called 'Hollywoodland', suggests "it's just two writers calling it that since it was in Hollywoodland."

http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...tHollywood.jpg
Google Maps

These ladies are described as 'starlets' rather than 'bathing beauties', but I think they must be the ones you're remembering.

Colored blue is the pool on Mt. Lee...still there in 1948. To the right is the Don Lee TV studio...now gone and replaced by a new building.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...ps516846aa.jpgHistoric Aerials

Mystery mounts.
 

:previous:

I haven't found a definitive answer, although Harvey H Wilcox filed a deed naming "Hollywood, California" in 1887, some 36 years before the "Hollywoodland" sign was erected, so the name "Hollywood" would have already been in common usage by 1923. I guess the sign was put up in the most prominent location above the new real estate development. From what I've read, Mount Lee was an "unnamed peak" (Wikipedia) until the transmitter was built. To add to the confusion, the book 'Hollywood, 1940-2008' by Marc Wanamaker has the following misleading caption.

http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...odlandSign.jpg
books.google.com


Some further reading on Mount Hollywood:

Small Mountain, Big Dreams

A History Of Griffith Observatory

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-1...827%2520AM.jpg
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-d...lariopic2x.jpg
LAT Sept 20, 1925


https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/--...2520AM.bmp.jpghttps://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-b.../delario11.jpg
LAT Dec 27, 1925/Apr 11, 1926

http://jpg1.lapl.org/pics16/00007567.jpghttp://jpg1.lapl.org/pics16/00007567.jpg


http://jpg2.lapl.org/pics04/00011571.jpghttp://jpg2.lapl.org/pics04/00011571.jpg


Cue the shovel nymphs. And, action!
http://jpg2.lapl.org/pics04/00011573.jpghttp://jpg2.lapl.org/pics04/00011573.jpg

1924
Western Construction
http://jpg1.lapl.org/pics16/00007576.jpghttp://jpg1.lapl.org/pics16/00007576.jpg


http://jpg2.lapl.org/pics04/00011577.jpghttp://jpg2.lapl.org/pics04/00011577.jpg


http://jpg2.lapl.org/pics04/00011558.jpghttp://jpg2.lapl.org/pics04/00011558.jpg


http://jpg2.lapl.org/pics04/00011565.jpghttp://jpg2.lapl.org/pics04/00011565.jpg


http://jpg2.lapl.org/pics04/00011553.jpghttp://jpg2.lapl.org/pics04/00011553.jpg


??? Dana Point and Hollywoodland?
http://jpg1.lapl.org/pics16/00007573.jpghttp://jpg1.lapl.org/pics16/00007573.jpg



http://jpg1.lapl.org/spnb01/00007120.jpghttp://jpg1.lapl.org/spnb01/00007120.jpg


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And the confusion continues. . . . . .:whisper:

1937 - "Panoramic view of Mount Lee and the Hollywoodland sign from the peak of Mount Hollywood."
http://jpg1.lapl.org/00098/00098470.jpghttp://jpg1.la
pl.org/00098/00098470.jpg


http://jpg1.lapl.org/00098/00098990.jpghttp://jpg1.lapl.org/00098/00098990.jpg


1992
http://jpg1.lapl.org/00102/00102565.jpghttp://jpg1.lapl.org/00102/00102565.jpg

:previous: That's a terrific view of the 'mystery' smokestack HossC. Now I am even more intrigued.
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a group of snapshots/1905 and 1906.
http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/674/gTAhZG.jpg
ebay

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/673/PJBQNe.jpg

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/538/eP8agm.jpg

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/912/EuuMXi.jpg
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Have you ever had the urge to wear your apron on your head? -well here's your chance.

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/673/BMfVtN.jpg
old file of mine

:)

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Mount Hollyw

http://hollywoodphotographs.com/photos/lrg/HS-002.jpg
H.P./Torrence

What might be the purpose of the triangle shape?

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...ostcount=20398

I haven't found any photos of the Oleander Arms apartment building, in front of the pool in the aerials I would imagine, nor any articles about the building being relocated in 1983 or so...but I found this screen capture, from A Star is Born, of the Oleander Arms.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_XRrU8-3Nmi...h/DSCN2540.JPG
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_XRrU8-3Nmi...h/DSCN2540.JPG

http://hollywoodphotographs.com/phot...D%20-041-4.jpg

photos of the scale model of the proposed Mack Sennet home.

http://hollywoodphotographs.com/phot...HLND-041-5.jpg

Below, Architect John Delario pointing at his never to be built creation.

http://hollywoodphotographs.com/phot...HLND-041-6.jpg
H.P./Torrence