Stop Five - Hollywood & Highland Center

Google Map for this location

Next, we head across the street to something that I had heard about, and hoped we would have time to see. Chris didn't even know this, so it was a suprise to him when I said I wanted to see it.

The Hollywood & Highland Center "consists of over 640,000 square feet of space featuring national, regional and local retail tenants, a variety of restaurants, several of Hollywood’s hottest nightclubs, a six screen state-of-the-art cinema adjacent to the world-famous Grauman’s Chinese Theatre and the 640 room Hollywood Renaissance Hotel" according to the Kodak Theater web site, the Kodak Theater being the new permanent home of the Academy Awards. What I had read about and wanted to see is the courtyard of the shopping center:
I had read about the elephants back when they were designing the complex, and was disappointed that they didn't really show them on TV the first time the Academy Awards were held there, but I was thrilled to see them in person. I had seen the movie Intolerance, that this courtyard was patterned after, but I had no idea of the size of these guys. They're HUGE!

And the archway has several levels where you can go up and take pictures, with the Hollywood sign in the background.

And one of the best things about the Hollywood & Highland Center is that they have a huge underground parking complex, which is a boon to such a congested area. When Stephie and I were there in '87, we drove around for quite a while before finding parking, and that was well before all this was built. We parked there and had lunch, saw the Hollywood Hisory museum, gawked at the huge elephants, and it only cost us two bucks for parking! We didn't even have time to see the Graumans Chinese Theater or any of the other sights there, but it was not for lack of parking!

But we had to move on if we were going to see more of the tour Chris put together. So we said goodbye to our elephant buddies, piled in the Element, and drove off in search of more cool stuff!

Update: Here's a better picture of the set of Intolerance that this courtyard is patterned after.

On to the Next Stop