I always feel bad for the tourists who take these excursions because 90% of the attractions are bullshit. You can’t REALLY see the stars’ homes, you can’t get ONTO the soundstages where classic movies were made. You can’t take your picture in front of Schwab’s Drug Store where Lana Turner was discovered because it no longer exists.
Hollywood Blvd. itself is seedy. The only time actual Hollywood stars go to Hollywood is for the Oscars and they get out of limos and walk red carpets surrounded by a phalanx of security. They're not at the T-shirt emporium. Maybe Cary Grant used to eat at Musso & Frank’s, and if you want to go there for the food I recommend it highly, but good luck seeing Emma Stone there.
Not to mention, once on the bus, out-of-towners are subjected to stand-still traffic like everybody else. So they wind up spending most of their day looking at Jiffy Lubes and Taco Bells (Emma Stone doesn’t eat there either).
One community if finally trying to do something about this. The Hollywood Hills have many winding narrow streets, and residents are forever inconvenienced by the tour bus monsters clogging up the roads. Now the city is considering regulations that would prevent tour buses from entering these narrow streets. And again, it’s not like the tourists are gong to be missing anything. Tom Hanks is not going to be shooting hoops in the driveway.
Of course, what that means is instead of the Hollywood Hills, these buses will now be in Westwood, slowing my commute, and making passage through UCLA impossible so tourists can see where Tim Robbins once bought an apple at the student union.
from By Ken Levine
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