“YOU WANT to touch the Hollywood Sign?” asked Jeff Zarrinnam, chairman of the Hollywood Sign Trust, the organization that oversees its preservation, with a laugh. “I think we can arrange that.”
This was my pop-culture holy grail. Like many travelers to Los Angeles, I have hiked the public trail in Griffith Park to the top of Mt. Lee, which offers a distant vision of the famous letters’ backside. It’s a deservedly iconic view, but this felt like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for more. I followed Zarrinnam as he unlocked a private security gate in the Hollywood Hills, about 100 feet above the letters, and handed me a rope to hold on to for the scramble down a slippery hillside. “I’m going down first,” he declared with an Indiana Jones flourish. “Wait till I give you the signal!”
Travelers Can Still Find the Magic of ‘Old Hollywood’-if They Know Where to Look
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