HOLLYWOOD -- BK had the best years there, no question. In comparison to his, my 1970s were the beginning of the downhill slide. But I thought it was the greatest place in the world. I’d still give anything to have those 1970s back, so it’s interesting to start from what I remember, and try to imagine all the ways in which it would have been even better prior to that.
The intersection of Hollywood and Highland was BK’s arrival point, and I credit that intersection as being my own focal point and gateway to Hollywood when several of us in college drove out there from Ohio in the summer of 1971. A few of us stayed in a motel on Sunset Blvd. east of Highland. It might even have been east of Vine, and it’s bizarre that after all those years I never thought to go have a look back at it. Somewhere I have a picture saved from Google Earth that shows what I believe to be the one. Others in our group stayed in a Travelodge on Sunset that I think was between Highland and La Brea. My chief memory of our motel was coming back one afternoon to find cops and ambulance there because some girl had drowned in the pool. I remember the blanket-covered body lying there on the patio. In spite of that little welcome to Hollywood, my best friend and I were so blown away by the place that we drove out the following June, 1972, no particular plans in mind but to enjoy it for a year or two. (That turned into 17 years for me. A job later took him to Northern California, where he married and raised a family and still lives in Santa Rosa.)
We took a one-week rental in a cheap apartment on Orange Drive behind the Chinese Theater. We’d both loved the Hamburger Hamlet, and he took a job as waiter there -- at store #10 in Hamlet lingo. (More about the Hamlet later.) I pounded the pavement looking at apartments, and finally chose the “Franklin Park Apartments” at the NW corner of Franklin and Whitley, even though we'd be splurging on it to the tune of $175 per month, more than we’d planned on spending. But we loved that place -- two blocks up from the House of Pies and the Boulevard and, as far as we were concerned, the center of the world. I took a job at a small publishing company on Beverly Blvd. near Rampart, a block from the original Tommy’s where an 8:00 a.m. chili cheeseburger before work was the greatest starter ever.
Back later with my own walk through Hollywood.
