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

Earl Carroll built Hollywood’s premier entertainment palace for his princess: singer-dancer-actress Beryl Wallace — whom he immortalized with a 20-foot neon portrait along Sunset Boulevard. Designed by master architect Gordon B. Kaufmann (Hollywood Palladium, LA Times Building, Hoover Dam), the ultra-modern Earl Carroll Theatre was the first of its kind in the U.S.: an open concept with the lobby, bar, and auditorium separated by terraces. In the back of the room, a staircase

In Hollywood, the Crossroads of the World intersect at Sunset Boulevard and Las Palmas Avenue. Built in 1936, the multi-national market — considered America’s first outdoor shopping mall — was designed to feel like “a permanent world’s fair with a cosmopolitan atmosphere.” The Crossroads of the World (University of Missouri at Kansas City) Indeed, the miniature city exudes Old World charm (Spanish Colonial, French Normandy, and English Tudor architecture) with a Moderne cente

One of Hollywood’s oldest landmarks, Yamashiro is a work of art. Yamashiro (USC) In 1911, German-born brothers Adolph and Eugene Bernheimer purchased seven hilltop acres from H.J. Whitley on the promise of building an exotic home. Three years (and hundreds of craftsmen from Japan) later, they completed their very own replica of a 17th-century temple located in Yamashiro, a mountainous region near Kyoto.