# Developer advertising turned cultural monument

By [Brandon Donnelly](https://paragraph.com/@brandondonnelly), 2022-05-31

community-debate, cultural-monument, development, hollywood-sign, hollywoodland, los-angeles, wsj

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![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/816e9654e68970c89e98e25593346cfd.png)

I don't really have an opinion on [the debate surrounding public access to Los Angeles' famed Hollywood sign](https://www.wsj.com/articles/hollywoodland-los-angeles-11651762743). I just don't know enough and I've never visited it myself.

On the one hand, if you live in Hollywoodland, I can see how having 10 million or so people traipse through your neighborhood each year to take photos of the sign might be a little annoying.

On the other hand, living in a big city like Los Angeles means dealing with certain annoyances. And doesn't everyone deserve a selfie with the sign? It also doesn't seem to be impacting values (see above).

What is more interesting to me is that all of this is a reminder that many/most of the neighborhoods and communities that people love today were, at one point, built be developers.

[The Hollywood sign](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_Sign) was first erected in 1923, and originally read Hollywoodland. It was developer advertising at its finest and intended to sell new homes. The sign cost $21,000 at the time.

Today the sign is a LA Historic-Cultural Monument and one of the city's most recognizable icons. Isn't it funny how this stuff works?

_Chart via_ [_the WSJ_](https://www.wsj.com/articles/hollywoodland-los-angeles-11651762743)

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*Originally published on [Brandon Donnelly](https://paragraph.com/@brandondonnelly/developer-advertising-turned-cultural-monument)*