Posted on 12/17/2019 1:08:21 PM PST by CondoleezzaProtege
For more than 70 years, a 34-foot illuminated cross looming over the Cahuenga Pass has been one of the landmarks by which motorists mark their passage between downtown and the San Fernando Valley.
In fact, the cross was conceived not as a purely religious monument, but as a memorial to one of Hollywood’s pioneers, Christine Wetherell Stevenson, the heiress to the Pittsburgh Paint fortune who helped arrange construction of the Hollywood Bowl. She was also an aspiring playwright who wrote “The Pilgrimage Play,” a pageant about the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.
In 1920, Stevenson chose 29 acres across the Cahuenga Pass from the Hollywood Bowl and helped carry stones from the nearby hills to build the open-air Pilgrimage Theater. She died two years later and in 1923, her admirers memorialized her by planting the cross on the hill above the theater.
...For many years, the cross was lighted only at Easter and during the annual “Pilgrimage Play” season. But the public’s affection for the landmark grew and soon Sunday school children were donating money to keep the cross lit. Ultimately, Southern California Edison assumed that expense and bore it until 1941, when the theater and cross were donated to the county...they renamed the theater after Supervisor John Anson Ford...
...But the tradition came under legal fire in 1978, when a California Supreme Court ruling ended Los Angeles’ 30-year practice of lighting City Hall windows to form a cross at Christmas and Easter. Two years later, a college professor successfully argued in court that the county was violating the constitutional separation of church and state by maintaining the Ford theater cross as well.
...Vandals chipped away at its foundation until a windstorm knocked it over it 1984...Afterward, a small group of crusaders began raising funds for a new cross...
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
I don’t know if anyone took on EveningStar’s So-Cal (Orange County/Los Angeles) pinglist, but this story would have fallen under the category.
So, So-Cal Ping!
Thank you. From a happy 70 year resident of Los Angles.
Spelled Los Angeles
It's like San Diego's Mt Soledad Cross. I can't imagine they thought there would be any problem donating such a thing to the gov't back in 1941.
The top photo just doesn’t look right.
That angle would be pointing north whereas the other photo looks as though it would be from the perspective of the Cahuenga Pass i.e. looking south.
Now how would I know?
You see, that antenna array above the Hollywood sign is the old Civil Defense Training Center. Now back in about 1964 Sue and I would go up there in my ‘57 Star Chief convertible, with the top down, and survey the LA night lights among other things.
Those were the days.
The second photo is the most accurate from my vantage driving down the 101.
Aww sounds like sweet memories :)!
I’m working from ancient memories but I agree.
I wonder if the top photo was photo-shopped?
It probably was. There is proximity to be sure, but the cross from what I know is further away, and the hilltop is tucked in such a way that you wouldn’t be able to see BOTH the sign and the cross at the same time...unless you’re on an airplane or something.
What is that 2nd cross located on the ridge between the Hollywood sign on the illuminated cross?
power pole
Does not look like a power pole to me. Besides that I have never seen a power pole that has a fence around it, and the fence looks like it is a wrought iron type of fence. Lastly, I cannot see any power lines in coming out either direction from the power pole, though that may be because they are just thin enough to not be able to be seen. But I did look very hard to see power lines.
In my youth I saw that cross probably 20 times (years) coming and going on Christmas Eve driving out to the Valley for Family gatherings. It was kinda emotional and reminded you what you were celebrating.
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