Hollywood Sign Now Ready For Its Closeup
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Hollywood sign's 10-week facelift is complete with nine shiny white letters ready for a 90th anniversary close-up.
Workers stripped the 45-foot letters of weathered paint, applied 105 gallons of primer and coated them with 255 gallons of high-reflective white paint. Sherwin-Williams picked up most of the $170,000 cost.
The sign celebrates its 90th anniversary next year.
The painting project began in October, about 35 years after the sign was rebuilt.
The hillside sign went up in 1923 at a cost of $21,000 to promote a Hollywoodland Real Estate Group development.
It read Hollywoodland until 1949, when the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce entered into a preservation deal and the last four letters were removed.
It was replaced in 1978 following a fundraiser hosted by Playboy founder Hugh Hefner.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.
