- Historic Sites The Day Before Hollywood It was a suburb of
orange blossoms and gardens, of gracious homes and quiet,
dignified lives—until a regrettable class of people moved in.
December 1983 | Volume 35, Issue 1 And yet the movies brought
the benefit the Chamber of Commerce had always striven for:
tourism. To cope with the influx, the Chamber prepared a booklet
that assured tourists that motion-picture studios were only a
part of Hollywood—“lower Hollywood”—and were “more or less lost
in the far-spreading bungalowed landscape.” The only other
evidence of movie business might be the presence on the sidewalk
of a group of people, “a man turning the crank of a camera …
while another man makes a girl do something foolish over and
over again. Scenes like this attract little attention. The real
Hollywood is engaged in its own affairs, which are those of
ordinary everyday humanity, working and trading and living, and
well satisfied to live in a beautiful place.” The fan magazines
attacked this attitude, calling