You’ll have no trouble recognizing this iconic 1956 tower, one of LA’s great mid-century buildings. Designed by Welton Becket, it resembles a stack of records topped by a stylus blinking out ‘Hollywood’ in Morse code. Some of music's biggest stars have recorded hits in the building's basement studios, from Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, the Beatles, Katy Perry and Sam Smith. Outside on the sidewalk, Garth Brooks and John Lennon have their stars.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby attractions

1. Pantages Theatre

0.09 MILES

Scottish architect Benjamin Marcus Priteca designed this 1930 survivor, the last theater commissioned by Greek-born theater magnate Alexander Pantages…

2. Hollywood & Vine

0.12 MILES

If you'd turned on the radio in the 1920s and '30s, chances were you’d hear a broadcast ‘brought to you from Hollywood and Vine’. Thanks to a mega…

3. Janes House

0.37 MILES

The last remaining Victorian home on Hollywood Blvd, built in 1903, and the former site of Miss Janes’ School, which was attended by the children of old…

4. Sunset Gower Studios

0.46 MILES

When Nestor Film Company moved to the corner of Sunset and Gower in 1911 it became the Sunset Gower Studios, which birthed Columbia Pictures when the Cohn…

5. Egyptian Theatre

0.6 MILES

The Egyptian, the first of the grand movie palaces on Hollywood Blvd, premiered Robin Hood in 1922. The theater’s lavish getup – complete with hieroglyphs…

6. Whitley Heights

0.63 MILES

For a taste of Old Hollywood, wander the narrow, winding streets of Whitley Heights, a residential preservation zone bordered by Franklin Ave to the south…

7. Sunset Bronson Studios

0.64 MILES

Jack Warner founded Sunset Bronson in 1919, building his studio on old farmland. It was here that Warner and Zanuck shot Rin Tin Tin (1924), the film's…

8. Hollywood Wax Museum

0.67 MILES

Starved for celeb sightings? Don’t fret: at this museum Angelina Jolie, Halle Berry and other red-carpet royalty will stand still – very still – for your…