Beep Beep! All Aboard My Personal Tram to the Hollywood Sign!
LatestWarner Bros. reportedly wants to build a aerial tram to the Hollywood sign, presumably as part of the jockeying between studios to build the best, most synergistic, priciest studio tour experience. Too bad their hypothetical tram would have to compete with the equally imaginary aerial tram to the Hollywood sign that exists in my brain! Toot toot!
The Los Angeles Times reported on the scheme:
The 95-year-old studio on Monday told city officials it would foot the bill for an aerial tramway to transport visitors to and from the Hollywood sign, starting from a parking structure next to its Burbank lot.
The effort, dubbed the Hollywood Skyway, would cost the studio an estimated $100 million, according to a person close to the company who was not authorized to comment. The tramway would take visitors on a 6-minute ride more than 1 mile up the back of Mt. Lee to a new visitors center near the sign, with pathways to a viewing area.
“Similar solutions in the past have been shot down over concerns that they would lead to the commercial exploitation of Griffith Park,” the Times noted, and there will probably be concerns about the effect on local wildlife. Can’t beat the environmental impact of something that exists in my own head, which is a Superfund site after years of blogging, anyway!
Seems worth noting that Warner Bros. “in 2015 invested $13 million to build a new set of interactive attractions and exhibits on its Burbank backlot to grab a larger share of L.A.’s tourism business,” and also they JUST added a “classics” tour to their repertoire, shortly after I last visited Los Angeles, thereby SNUBBING me as a visitor. It is probably revenge for the fact that even now, my mind’s eye is the exclusive proprietor of a gleaming aerial tram piloted by yours truly straight to the Hollywood sign, peppered by facts from the history of the movie business that are only slightly garbled. I wear a conductor’s cap cocked at a rakish angle and everything!
All aboard!!!