Marilyn Monroe’s troubled childhood had a brief bright spot in 1933, when her mother purchased a home near the Hollywood Bowl.

Crane’s Hollywood showroom displayed the latest in modern plumbing.

In 1964, Walt Disney imagined an enchanting 26-acre Hollywood campus for CalArts in the hills near the Hollywood Bowl.

The Hollywood motel opened in 1949 on Highland Avenue.

The start of the 1940 Hollywood Bowl season was heralded with the dedication of The Muse of Music, “a symbol of the arts within.” Located at the entrance along Highland Avenue, the 15-foot granite sculpture is mounted on a 220-foot-long Streamline Moderne pedestal and flanked by her sisters, the Muses of Dance and Drama, perched in lower niches of the four-tiered fountain. Symbolizing their respective genres, Music is strumming a lyre, while Dance sways and Drama holds the th

Could there be buried treasure at the Hollywood Bowl? More so, did its curse kill at least 10 men? The Hollywood Bowl and its famous parking lot in 1929 (Huntington Library) The lore of the loot dates back to 1864 amid the second French intervention in Mexico. To defend against a monarchical government (Emperor Maximilian I, former Austrian archduke), the resistance crowd-sourced $200,000 worth of gold coins, diamonds, jewelry, and watches to buy armaments in San Francisco. F

Kathryn Baird Sullivan realized her long-cherished dream to “launch brides and grooms happily on their marital ways” when she turned her home at 1927 Highland Avenue into the Hollywood Wedding Chapel. Hollywood Wedding Chapel (UCLA) The very first day of business in 1930, she solemnized six ceremonies. Billing herself as a “wedding consultant,” Sullivan’s services included planning of the decorations, music, reception, and catering — with the promise to make the big day “deli

Hollywood queens trusted their faces to the makeup king, Max Factor. Max Factor (UCLA) From his Highland Avenue studio, the brilliant beautician transformed starlets into style icons: Lucille Ball’s false eyelashes and red curls, Jean Harlow’s platinum blond, Joan Crawford’s overdrawn “hunter’s bow,” and Clara Bow’s heart-shaped lips.

Below the Mediterranean mecca of Whitley Heights sat another European-inspired beauty: the French Village. French Village In 1919, brothers Walter and Pierpont Davis built up a cluster of unique cottages, located at the convergence of Highland Avenue and Cahuenga Boulevard, modeled after the Normandy countryside — “far removed from the conventional, commercial type,” described the 1921 Building Review.