The Hollywood and La Brea Gateway gazebo, known locally as "The Four Ladies of Hollywood", stands upon a small triangular "island" formed by the confluence of Hollywood Boulevard, Marshfield Way, and North La Brea Avenue at the westernmost extension of the Walk of Fame. It was commissioned in 1993 by the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency Art Program, and created by the architect, production designer, and film director Catherine Hardwicke as a tribute to the multi-ethnic women of Hollywood. The gazebo is a stainless steel stylized Art Deco lattice structure. The roof is an arched square supporting a circular dome; the word "HOLLYWOOD", decorated with small motion picture camera emblems, appears within each of the four archways. The dome is topped by a central obelisk, with neon block letters spelling "HOLLYWOOD" descending vertically on each of its four sides. Atop the obelisk is a small gilded weathervane-style sculpture of Marilyn Monroe in her iconic "billowing skirt" pose from The Seven Year Itch. The domed structure is held aloft by four caryatids sculpted by Harl West to represent the African-American actress Dorothy Dandridge, Asian-American actress Anna May Wong, Mexican actress Dolores del Río, and the multi-ethnic, Brooklyn-born actress Mae West. The sculpture measures 30 feet (9.1m) in height and 12 feet (3.6m) along each side.
The work was dedicated February 1, 1994, to a mixed reception. Los Angeles Times art critic Christopher Knight called it "the most depressingly awful work of public art in recent years," representing the opposite of Hardwicke's intended tribute to women. "Sex, as a woman's historic gateway to Hollywood," he wrote, "couldn't be more explicitly described." Independent writer and film producer Gail Choice, however, called it a fitting tribute to a group of pioneering, courageous women who "carried a tremendous burden on their feminine shoulders," as depicted quite literally in Hardwicke's gazebo. "Never in my wildest dreams did I believe I'd ever see women of color immortalized in such a creative and wonderful fashion." Hardwicke contended that critics had missed the "humor and symbolism" of the structure, which "embraces and pokes fun at the glamour, the polished metallic male form of the Oscar, and the pastiche of styles and dreams that pervades Tinseltown."
Read more about this topic: Hollywood Walk Of Fame
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